Sunset Rubdown – Spring & Airbrake – 11/09/09ug

For anybody who has followed the rise of Candian indie rock over the last decade, Spencer Krug is somewhat of a king. The co-leader of Wolf Parade, and sometime member of Frog Eyes, has mainly focused on Sunset Rubdown for the last few years. After a trip to see their performance at Crawdaddy in Dublin last year, I was left feeling reluctantly disappointed. Putting it down to an off day, I made it my mission to catch their first ever Belfast show, in hope more justice would be done to the albums.

Sunset Rubdown

Sunset Rubdown start the set with a rather subdued, and possibly a bit half hearted, “The Empty Threats of Little Lord”. The Spring & Airbrake is far from full and the crowd begin to move to the front quickly. Similar to their show in Dublin last year, they seem to be tired – or not bothered – strolling through their set like they’re going through the motions. They play some brilliant tunes like “Black Swan”, “Dragon’s Lair”, the “Mending of the Gown” but a lot of the excitement and detail from the album is lost.

Paddling in a pool of reverb, instruments are floating around aimlessly and missing the right spot to be heard. Every note is right, but it’s missing its “edge”. I begin to conclude that Sunset Rubdown are a fantastic studio band, but unable to really convert that into a live experience.

However, most of the intimate crowd love it and shuffle in approval. The songs are twisting, epic, prog universes of their own. And with doubled up drums, strange synths, piano, cutting guitar lines and Spencer’s unmistakable vocal – Sunset Rubdown are hard to confuse with any other band.

The set begins to pick up towards the end, and Spencer himself seems to be enjoying it more using his piano stool as some sort of stunt prop. But no amount of banter about dreams of Drew Barrymore fights and her minion children bounty hunters can really pull this out of the ‘disappointing’ category.

The encore was the highlight of the night and I can’t help feel they’re just getting into their stride. “The Taming of the Hands that Came Back To Life” gave us plenty of opportunity to sing our hearts out and for them to show us they can still do dynamics. “Us One in Between” followed lulling us back down for the end of the night and our journeys home.

It was by no means terrible, but once again I’m left feeling disenchanted. This band should be amazing live, but they never quite get there. Bring on more albums! But I’ll probably pass the next time they’re in town.