Good Feelings Only at Violent Femmes’s 40th Anniversary.
Shot and written by Eva Lynch
October 12, 2023
Montreal, QC @ MTELUS
Kevin Hearn
The night began with a brief performance by The Barenaked Ladies’ Kevin Hearn. He started the evening by welcoming the audience a stripped back set of him with his guitar and playing a handful of songs, including “Floating,” which he wrote with his dear friend Lou Reed. Lou Reed was one of Hearn’s biggest musician heroes and inspirations, as he says the Velvet Underground's music always let his mind ‘float away.’ This friendship and shared creative vision was cemented when Hearn had the chance to act as Reed’s keyboardist and musical director from 2007. Having worked with a plethora of musicians, ranging from Elvis Costello to Gourd Downie, and having spent years as a multi-instrumentalist for The Barenaked Ladies, Hearn has created a creative yet classic Canadian sound, which blends melodic instrumentals with playful and fantastical, often darkly humorous, lyrics. This humorous yet dark lyricism was on full display as he sang a few songs preparing the crowd for the Violent Femmes, nestled in between their many saxophones and other assorted instruments on stage.
Violent Femmes
As I waited for them to take the stage I was entranced by not only the number but also the obscurity of the instruments in front of me, and couldn’t wait to see them all in action. how many spent a moment looking at all the many instruments which graced the stage, looking at the range of saxophones which included several regular and one massive contrabass saxophone they’ve incorporated into their latest albums and on-stage performance. The impressive line up also included a banjo, violin, xylophone, and their classic percussive weapon, a charcoal barbecue.
I had the chance to see the Violent Femmes many years ago, when they toured with Echo and The Bunnymen, in the middle of a packed stadium at the heart of Orange County Fair -- a California carnival packed with hot-tub showrooms, gaudy rides and deep-fried, bacon-wrapped, peanut butter coated meatballs that would bring absolutely anyone one step closer to heart failure and antithetical to the punk roots of the Violent Femmes in every way imaginable. So it’s fair to say I had no idea what to expect from this show, and walked away feeling reminded of what made me love the Violent Femmes in the first place.
They were a cult band in the 80s and 90s with their debut of brash, raw and unapologetic songs which were charged with themes of sex, violence and ‘perverted religiosity,’ as Pitchfork put it. Gordan Gano’s religious background with a father as a pastor served to provide lots of room for subverting religion, where other members of the band like Brian Ritchie have said they think it’s more punk to defy your audience and not just play what they want to hear. The album became an alternative classic and paved a new path for itself by enmeshing a multitude of genres into something new and exciting, with sprawling jazz, folk and American roots influence, but the raw energy of punk rock.
Their first album, Violent Femmes, solidified the Violent Femmes as a pillar of the American underground movement and early alternative rock. Even 40 years later, when they walk out on stage this experimental nature is still as present as ever. They attacked the music with a renewed force and fresh perspective which made you question if it could really be so long since it was first released, while simultaneously appreciating how in sync the members were on stage after so many years working together. For the anniversary tour they jumped right to it with Blister in the Sun, playing the full album front to back with barely a break between songs.
From starting chants during “Confessions” to busting out the aforementioned accordion and xylophone, as well as a box-drum and electric guitar during ‘Gone Daddy Gone,’ they had the crowd buzzing. They brought an energy and vivacity to the show which reawoke the same spirit that had people flocking to the album when it first came out, and solidified why that first record Violent Femmes has remained an alternative classic for the past four decades. Throughout the show I moved around the venue and from every angle the whole crowd was a sea of movement and non-stop motion. They closed out the album with “Good Feeling” which featured a violin solo from the lead singer Gordan Gano himself, before finally taking a moment to thank everyone for coming out to celebrate with them and introducing themselves. They took their first breath of the night, before quickly transitioning into an array of songs selected from the rest of their discography for the second half of the night. They brought just as much energy to their more country-leaning hits such as “American Music” and “Jesus Walking on Water,” and had the crowd singing along to their catchy refrains until the very end of the evening, when it came time for everyone to disperse and return to their lives, humming all the way.
