Last Saturday night the LA indie band Wallows stopped by to perform at Vancouver’s Rio Theatre.
To open the show local Vancouver band The New Ritual performed. Playing a very nineties-ish style of alt-rock, The New Ritual impressed the crowd with their dynamic songs and witty crowd banter. Although they put in a good performance, they felt like they might be better suited to a smaller venue, not taking up much space on the stage. All in all, they did a great job warming up the crowd for Wallows and will have an interesting future as a band.
With an introduction by The Beatles’ “Happy Birthday” Wallows took the stage to a chorus of screams from the mostly female crowd.
The young band started out the night strong, playing their song “Pulling Leaves Off Trees.” The band seemed to be in good shape, looking very comfortable on stage and soaking up all of the attention from their adoring fans.
Early on in the show, the crowd stopped the performance to sing a rendition of “Happy Birthday,” led by lead guitarist Dylan Minnette, to rhythm guitarist Braeden Lemasters.
The general vibe of the show was loose and fun, with duel frontman Lemasters and Minnette putting in impressive performances. The two frontmen sang harmonies and danced around the stage together, putting on a good show for the Vancouver audience.
Although the show was very entertaining, with the screaming teenage crowd, the band felt a little like a boy band with instruments. The five band members very much felt like a group of young, still somewhat untested musicians. That being said their star power was quite obvious.
They moved through the show, performing some new material, as well as a pretty decent cover of The Smiths “This Charming Man.” They quickly blew through their catalog, which they acknowledged was quite short, with only four recorded and released songs. Even with their short catalog, they dazzled the crowd with “Sun Tan,” “Uncomfortable” and “Pleaser’, which all got great responses from the crowd.
After a quick 45 minute set the band jumped into their encore which started with a solo performance by Lemasters of a new song love called “1980’s Horror Film” about a girl who is “really not that into guys’’.
And with this last original song, the night sort of fell apart. Wallows played three last covers to end the show. They started with The Violent Femmes’ “Blister in the Sun,” which they stopped playing halfway through. And then they went on to Blink 182’s “Dammit,” which they also stopped playing halfway through. And then they went on to Smash Mouth’s “All Star” after someone from the crowd requested it and they also stopped playing this halfway through before returning to finish “Blister in the Sun.”
Most of the encore was spend docking around on stage and talking to the crowd which felt a bit too unrehearsed. To end the show, they stopped playing and then unceremoniously told the crowd the show was over and walked off stage, leaving the rest of the crowd’s energy to spill out onto Commercial Drive.
Check out Wallows Pulling off Leaves live below