Not a concert… not necessarily a celebration either

I feel fortunate to have escaped with my camera, my health and my dignity intact after taking photos of Tuesday’s Andrew W.K. concert at the Biltmore Cabaret for uptownsound.

The photos should be up soon, as should a review by my colleague, Quentin.

Some observations, though.

First, you can actually get into bars with a piece of identification from Guam. Makes you wonder why teenagers try to forge B.C. drivers licenses when they could make up Id’s for places like, say, Micronesia or Palau.

Second, getting people to stand up at a concert is easy. Getting them to sit down on a dance floor during a rock concert is infinitely harder, but that’s something Nardwuar, of Muchmusic fame, was able to accomplish with his band the Evaporators. Pretty cool. And makes for easy photos.

Andrew W.K. prefaced his show by saying “this isn’t a concert, It’s a celebration.” Well, it wasn’t much of a concert. Not much of a celebration either. More just a gongshow with half the audience ending up on stage and crashing around speakers, monitors and other seemingly valuable pieces of equipment. If you think it’s hard shooting a concert in your normal bar, where there is no convenient barrier between a slightly-elevated band and a raucous crowd, imagine the difficulty when the crowd joins the sole performer on stage. Fortunately, they all fell down in a heap. Again, go to uptownsound.ca.

Eventually, the concert ended with Andrew W.K. telling the crowd that sound equipment had been damaged and he couldn’t keep playing. Interesting to say the least.