Temples at the Fox Cabaret
review by Conor Graham
On a smoky Tuesday night in Vancouver the boys from the English psych rock band, Temples put on a show at the Fox Cabaret with openers, The Orange Kyte. The Fox Cabaret is an interesting venue, it already has so much character that it is hard to use as a blank canvas like most bands need to do during their live shows, and this, I think, is what worked against Temples in the end.
There is no doubt in my mind, after seeing the show, that Temples are great performers. Their light show was top notch, a little corny but also well suited to their performance; they were tight and full of energy. That being said, while they gave a measured performance I also got the feeling that I was watching something that was overly rehearsed. With songs like ‘All Join In” which they played towards the beginning of the show, I felt like I was watching actors more than musicians.
To be fair, there were long stretches during the show where I was just enjoying hearing their music being played live. After listening to their album Volcano so much over the past couple weeks, it was delightful to hear the band play songs like ‘Roman Godlike Man’ and ‘How Would You Like To Go,’ which I have to admit, James Bagshaw killed it on the vocals. There was also a little bit of crowd surfing during the show which is a definite sign that a band is putting on a good show. But for all the musical flair they brought to their performance, I couldn’t help but feel that I was getting something that any other set of professional musicians could have given me, a well-crafted stage show with a solid musical performance.
I may not be able to speak for every person that was at the Fox Cabaret on Tuesday night, but I think the most sincere, the most gut-bustlingly raw, and the most interesting music that was being played at that concert came from The Orange Kyte. On such a mess of a stage, with musical instruments and amplifiers haphazardly stacked around them, The Orange Kyte put on the show my sixteen-year-old self dreamed of going to. Instead of painting over the pre-established essence of The Fox Cabaret, The Orange Kyte perfectly melded with it, producing forty-five minute of fuzzy, noisy, and hard hitting psychedelic rock.
If you didn’t get a chance to see the show, check out The Orange Kyte and check out Temples, they may not have been my favourite, but they could be yours.
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written by Conor Graham