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We Are The Take
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13-Jan-2008 09:55 pm
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Contributed by: pete
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Concert Reviews
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I saw We Are The Take more or less by accident when I went to photograph Mariana's Trench and Birds Of Wales at The Opera House. They were sandwiched between the other two bands, and so I just happened to be there to hear them. They really caught my attention with a song called Dreams and so I've been looking forward to hearing more from them. The opportunity arose this month with a show at Toronto's new venue Tattoo Rock Parlour.
I want to mention a few things about the Tattoo: It's only been open for a month, but they already fixed a few of the problems with the stage. The first issue was that there were these bulky structures holding up lighting that crowded the drummer and cramped the stage, but those are now gone. Much better! The other thing was that they had this comedy club fake-brick background on the wall behind the stage. Now they've hung a backdrop. Also a big improvement. And lastly, they now have beer on tap. The one remaining issue is that the monitor speakers are too big for the stage, which is really only an issue from a photographic standpoint, I guess.
We Are The Take
Since I never actually managed to get over to We Are The Take's MySpace page to hear more after the first show, I still didn't really know their material. All I could remember is that they had one killer indie-rock song, and I wanted to get another taste. I got that taste, and even though I didn't immediately recognize the song Dreams the second time, I did get that same ah ha feeling while they were playing it. And this time there was at least one other song that really stood out for me as well, a slower song called Montreal Love Song (which is available on their MySpace, go listen to that one).
The band goes through lots of moments of strong stage presence, like the passion exerted by Erik Alcock (vocals, guitar, piano) during one of the songs he played on the keyboard. But while playing some of their new songs I caught them looking just a little too inward. But almost all of the songs that were identified as "new" seemed to have a little more in them for me. The final number of the set was also identified as a new song, and Erik mentioned it was the first time they were going to perform it in public. It didn't roll out quite as smoothly as the other songs, but even so, it was a clear indicator that something good is going on with this band.
The band is spending time in the recording studio now with an accomplished producer (I'd tell you his name here and now, but I want confirmation before I publish it... I'll update this text once I know for sure), and we should be able to hear the results later in the year. I plan on getting out to see We Are The Take a few more times this year, so you'll likely get to see and hear more about them on this site.
Info: We Are The Take | Connect: MySpace
Songs From A Room
I tried to get out to see this band in fall last year, but our schedules just didn't synch up, so it was a happy accident to see them play. Despite the fact that the name of the band sounds a little soft (possibly due to the association with Leonard Cohen), the music they play is actually screaming loud rock. There was a bit of a warm-up period for the band, but they pulled it together from some synchronized rocking-out later in the set.
Info and Connect: Songs From A Room on MySpace
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