BeatRoute Magazine BC Edition September 2018

LIVE
Anderson .Paak and The Free Nationals
Safe & Sound Music Fest (Westminster Pier Park)
August 25, 2018
Yes Lawd! Anderson .Paak and The Free Nationals
wowed the crowd with an electric headlining set at
Safe & Sound Music Fest.
Hands in the air, voices singing along to every
word, it’s safe to say the audience was glowed up. It’s
been nearly three years since .Paak released Malibu,
but the songs aren’t getting old.
The young artist certainly lives up to the hype. He’s
an energetic force onstage and his band is stacked
with solid musicians.
The set was Malibu heavy, the same material
as their September 2016 show at the Vogue, but
arrangements have evolved and the performances
have developed over the years.
.Paak delivered an electric performance, taking to
Photo by Darrole Palmer
the stage in matching banana print shirt and shorts
with some groovy dance moves. He started off with
the bouncy, bassy “Come Down,” urging his fans, “y’all
gotta get down.” He followed it with “The Waters,”
and “Glowed Up,” his Kaytranada collaboration.
Then he took to the drums for his newest song,
“Bubblin.” .Paak’s skillset truly shines when he
showcases his ability to drum while delivering solid
vocal performances. A highlight of the night was
“The Season / Carry Me” with .Paak’s high energy and
enthusiastic singing from the audience.
The Free Nationals are stellar musicians, but Ron
Tnava Avant on keys stands out with his energy,
impressively diverse solos and vocoder stylings.
The audience’s enthusiasm was rewarded with an
encore that included “The Bird” and “The Dreamer.”
It was an astounding performance that ended the
second annual Safe & Sound Festival on a high note.
• Lauren Donnelly
Insane Clown Posse
Venue Nightclub
August 16, 2018
Venue nightclub was filled with a concoction
of juggalos and juggalettes caked in white and
black makeup. Grins stretched from ear to ear
as they chanted “ICP” within the smokey blue
haze. There was a great anticipation in the air as
everyone waited for Insane Clown Posse to hit
the stage. It wasn’t long though before everyone
was united in an all-out freakshow.
The black tarp fell, introducing a Carnivalesque
backdrop. ICP members Violent J and
Shaggy 2 Drop hit the stage, opening with
classics “Great Milenko,” and “Hokus Pokus.”
The grooves were funky and the vibes were on
point. Within minutes, the plastic coverings
made sense, as ICP shook and popped two-litre
bottles of Faygo, an American soft-drink, onto
the dancing crowd. We aren’t talking one or
two bottles, they seemed to have an unlimited
stock and fired them off like a machine-gun
massacre, slathering the crowd in a sugary,
cream-soda scented sticky. Every-time a bottle
was used, one of ICP’s monstrous stageservants
would restock the soda cart from their
seemingly bottomless pit.
Being called the Milenko & Friends Tour, ICP
played songs from their 1997 album, The Great
Milenko, including: “Southwest Voodoo,” “Halls
of Illusions.” They also performed Bizzar’s “Let’s
Go All the Way” which blew the roof off the
venue in addition to a mix of new tracks.
Overall, the show was a live experience
far different from your average live music
experience. Fans left the show sweaty, sticky,
and locked with an unlockable grin after being
hazed in funkalicious grooves.
• Johnny Papan
Photo by Zachary Schroeder
Photo by Darrole Palmer
Queens of the Stone Age
Commodore Ballroom
August 4, 2018
Corporate sponsored shows don’t usually make for cool events. You
expect mostly industry types hoping to network and not many real fans
make it into the show. Luckily, this was not one of those situations. Queens
of the Stone Age at a venue as intimate as the Commodore Ballroom is
probably not going to happen again anytime soon in the future, so as
soon as Aurora (one of Canada’s fastest growing marijuana companies)
announced the secret show, it became the hottest ticket in town.
At around 10:10, just after a big Van Halen crowd singalong, the lights
went dark, joints were lit, and Queens of the Stone Age appeared on stage.
Opening with a crushing rendition of “A Song For the Deaf,” Josh Homme
and the rest of band showed they weren’t messing around.
Since this show was not part of a tour and the band are off the promo
circuit, Queens played a career spanning set that included at least one
song off every album (except the self-titled). To many fans’ delight, the
band chose to play a mainly deep cuts set which included Rated R’s “In The
Fade” and “The Lost Art of Keeping A Secret” and Song for the Deaf’s “Do
It Again” and “Hanging Tree.” Along with some of the bands new material,
they kept the momentum and excitement up the whole show.
After ending the set with their hit “Little Sister,” Queens left the stage
but the crowd wanted more. A few minutes later they came back with
“A Song for the Dead,” possibly the band’s heaviest song, and the entire
crowd erupted. The next six minutes was frantic chaos and when the song
stopped, the crowd knew the show was over. There was nothing the band
could play after that. Josh Homme lit up a joint and thanked the crowd
with a huge smile on his face.
• Joshua Erickson
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