Wendy Wong
Heating up
The Besnard Lakes keep fans from feeling the cold
By Katy Henriksen
Published: December 7th, 2007 | 11:47am
Dec. 5, 2007, in New York City — “Thanks New York. How’s it going?” says Besnard Lakes lead singer Jace Lasek. This is the first statement from the band and it comes after performing two epic songs without pause to begin the set at the Bowery Ballroom. “It’s probably just as cold in Montreal as it is here. That’s not usually the case.”
It was a particularly frigid December night, with a wind chill in the teens, and the medium-sized crowd that turned up for the show was dressed accordingly in knit caps, scarves, and lots of layers. But the dark sonic eruptions of heat from this six-piece soon had everyone peeling off those layers. In a little more than an hour, The Besnard Lakes managed to play nearly every song off their sophomore effort The Besnard Lakes are the Dark Horse (Jagjaguwar), plus three songs from their self-released debut Volume I, and a Fleetwood Mac cover to close the night out.
Making an unassuming entrance after already having been on stage to perfect their set-up of equipment — three guitars, two keyboards, a bass, a drum kit, and an insane mass of effects pedals — they opened with sustained reverb and segued directly into “Rides the Rails,” a droning Brian Wilson-esque tune that bled directly into “Devastation,” an anthem of distortion and head-banging riffs, both from Dark Horse.
Lasek’s vocals were at first a little hesitant, but they solidified when he switched to falsetto for the third song, “For Agent 13,” which he sang in duet with wife and bassist Olga Goreas. Conjuring at first a little Julee Cruise Twin Peaks noir with fuzzy keyboards played to perfection by Nicole Lizée atop twangy guitar, it built slowly into an ecstatic sonar orbit.
“We’re going to play a couple old ones for you now,” Lasek says four songs in. By this time, sweat was visibly dripping down his forehead, but he didn't seem to have lost any energy as they performed a drum- and bass-heavy “Thomasina.”
The standout of the night “Because Tonight” began with a deceptively slow tremolo doo-wop beginning, in which Steve Raegele bowed his electric guitar and shifted to an intensity of epic proportions, with a full-out jam that saw Lasek and Goreas facing each other as they thrashed.
The Besnard Lakes watch and listen to one another so closely that just as their sounds have peaked at full force, suddenly there’s silence — complete silence for a full measure or so at times, as in “And You Lied To Me,” which ended the official set. The contrast from excessive noise to nothing in an instant was remarkable and something that can’t possibly be conveyed in recording.
Performing live, the Besnard Lakes don’t need any of the strings or horns such as those used to fill out Dark Horse, or even any stage antics or elaborate fashion statements — their commanding cohesion and intense, genre-shifting, otherworldly orchestrations are enough.
But, just to show they have a lighter side, they closed the two-song encore out with “You Make Loving Fun” by Fleetwood Mac — and the crowd dispersed with rosy cheeks, ready to embrace the chill outside and the prospect of a long subway ride home.
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