Hammerhands
Support: Appalaches, C H R I S T, Foreigns, Quiet Earth
Date: Friday July 20th, 2017
Venue: Nocturn in Toronto, Ontario
T-shirt worn: Godspeed You! Black Emperor ‘Hand’
Nocturn is very likely the smallest venue I've been to yet. Well maybe not. This show was in a 30x20 room connected to a hip-hop bar, which is slightly larger. You could clearly hear what was going on over there whenever there was a break or a quite moment in the music in the smaller room. But it has couches and the drinks are cheap.
I'd never heard of any of these bands before this show but every show this promoter Briefcase Shows puts on ends up being awesome so I just have to see his name tacked onto something and I'm there.
Quite Earth played first. They were barely out of their teens and it was their first show. I think Ben Savage from Boy Meets World was their singer/guitarist. They weren't very good at all and couldn’t have ended sooner. Fifteen minutes was a lot.
The next band was an instrumental band called Foreigns. They sounded like every Mastodong interlude, bridge, segway and breakdown. Even in song length. It was all just interludes. They were okay. They were at least better than the first band.
The next band was another instrumental band called C H R I S T but they were way, WAY better than the previous two. They were just slow, dirgy post-rock with awesome keyboards. I really liked them. Not much in the loud department though.
Another instrumental post-rock band called Appalaches followed and they were even better. They upped the volume quite a bit, to the point where a young man from the adjoining hip-hop club came over and asked if he could rap over their music. He got escorted out. They were really good.
The final band of the night was an extremely abrasive sludge band called Hammerhands. I don’t really like labelling them as the “headliner” of this show since there really wasn’t one. They just…played last. But that gets their name in the thread title. Unlike all the other bands tonight there really was nothing melodic about them. Just yelling, crushing and feedback. They were okay but there were better bands tonight. But after they’d played and when we were leaving I noticed the hip-hop club was empty. It was only 1am so maybe they cleared the building.
Hammerhands
hammerhandstheband.bandcamp.com
Appalaches
appalachesmtl.bandcamp.com
C H R I S T
chrst.bandcamp.com
Foreigns
foreigns.bandcamp.com/album/metropolitan
Quite Earth
quietearthtoronto.bandcamp.com/releases
Do you like old people porn? Because I just put enough to fill an old folks home in the wrestling section!