THE BESNARD LAKES

MALAJUBE

THE SOFT PROVINCE

SEPT. 28, THE EXCHANGE

I feel old as all hell. I was ready to throw down for at least a good half of the Besnard Lakes set, but man if 4 a.m. wake-ups don’t throw me off my game.

The show got started at around 9 p.m., with the Soft Province opening. That’s the side project Besnard Lakes’ Jace Lasek has going with Regina’s Mike Gardiner. The album they released earlier this year had a few great tracks on it with some great building guitars that felt more concrete than what Besnard Lakes get up to.

Gardiner was great. Watching him on stage made me wish more and more that his other band, Tinsel Trees, already had an album out. Lasek was low-energy, sticking to singing and occasional guitar work. Nothing compared to when he was playing with Besnard Lakes later on in the night. I only caught the first four songs or so before I had to jet, but Lasek and the rest of the band were self-assured and hard-playing, as any band with such a catalog of psych brilliance should be.

(Side note: for the Besnard Lakes’ set, Lasek was wearing a button-up shirt. For the Soft Province, he was wearing the same Triple Keyboard Cat shirt that the lady officially owns and that her sister pretty much owns at this point. Great minds think alike.)

A bunch of Regina musicians rounded out the ranks of the Soft Province, including members former and current of the Lonesome Weekends, the War Doves, Library Voices, LoveACT, and on from there.

I can’t remember the last time I saw band who needed to tune that much, though. And Lasek would only talk to the audience when something was shouted at him. It was nice seeing songs off the album live, though. They hold up.

Seeing Malajube live really explains the course their albums have taken. Trompe l’oeil is relatively lush, with vocal harmonies that don’t really make an appearance live. Future albums, from what I’ve heard of them, are more of the four-piece live rock ‘n’ roll band with some grander ambitions. And Jesus, were they good.

For their last song, though, they turned on some strobe lights that were placed behind them, aimed at the audience. The Besnard Lakes used those and other lights on stage more, and it made better sense for them. It fit well with their psych ambitions to freak people out a little bit.