Alcest
Support: the Body, Creepers
Date: Saturday January 21st, 2017
Venue: Lee's Palace in Toronto, Ontario
T-shirt worn: Abyssal

The first band Creepers featured "members of Deafheaven". As far as I can tell it was just the guitar player that doesn't write Deafheavens songs. But for all I know it was Deafheavens bassist and drummer too. No one knows any of the members of that band anyway except the singer and the guy with glasses. I think Dustin Diamond may be their keyboard player. Anyway, Creepers were okay musically when they rocked out. But their boring bits were boring as fuck and their vocals were terrible. I was so bored by the third song that I went to buy a shirt from the Body guys.

Alcest would've brought me out anyway but the Body really sealed me coming out tonight. Their 2016 album 'No One Deserves Happiness' was my album of the year and their song Fleshworks was my song of the year...but it was from a different album. It didn't even bother me that they'd gone all electronic on this tour because I like their electronic stuff better. I would have liked a bit of sludgy guitar though. Whatever, they were pretty awesome. There's a third guy on this tour with them using one of those electronic drum sampler things that people play with their fingers. I recognized two songs for sure. The rest was a mess of noise. But it was an awesome mess of noise. If anything it could have been more unrelenting and punishingly loud. It's early in 2017 but this could end up being a top ten performance.

The Body
1. Empty Hearth
2. ?
3. Hallow / Hollow
4. ? (possibly To Know and To Hide)
5. ? (possibly A Curse)
6. Bearer Of Bad Tidings

When I saw Alcest open for Enslaved five years ago they were kinda timid on stage and looked to be out of their element. They're a lot more confident on stage now. I’m not sure if they’re better though because they were really good on that tour with Enslaved. The sound was better tonight so it was easier to make out what was going on. They started out really strong but things got pretty boring from Les voyages de l'âme onwards. Even Délivrance (which is a great song which I like a lot) fell on deaf ears…and was a terrible ending to the concert. They should have pulled out one of the earlier songs like Printemps emeraude or Le Secret to finish the show off on a higher note. Not even playing anything from Souvenirs d'un autre monde was lame. I too personally would’ve liked another song or two from Shelter, especially in lieu of one of the songs from Les Voyages de l'Âme (which they played too many songs from). When it was over the crowd just kinda cleared out with a kind of “meh” look on their faces, which was too bad because they started pretty hype. Maybe they shouldn't have put all the more high energy songs towards the beginning and the somber songs all towards the end.

Alcest
[Intro] Onyx
1. Kodama
2. Je suis d'ailleurs
3. Ecailles de lune - Part 2
4. Autre temps
5. Oiseaux de proie
6. Eclosion
7. Les voyages de l'âme
8. Sur L'Océan Couleur De Fer
9. Là où naissent les couleurs nouvelles
[encore]
10. Délivrance


Alcest