Preoccupations (aka Vietcong)

Preoccupations (aka Vietcong)

Fairmount Theatre

Montreal

October 11, 2016

I wanted to see this band last year when they were touring as Vietcong, but I missed all their shows.

This time I was going and hoping to see some old songs being played as well.

I was tired and a little sick that night so it might have altered my perception of the show...

The opening band was great, we could hear really well the music and the singer's voice.

When Preoccupations started, it was not the case anymore...the singer's voice we couldn't hear and was kind of muffled which was quite annoying to me.

So the first song was not impressive because of that.

The second songs had a great rhythm to it and the performance was enhanced with the guitar player performing on his knees and that was great to watch!

I felt that throughout the set, the performance was really different/shaky.

Some of the songs they played were more instrumental, but there were no cohesion between the musicians which made them flat.

Other times, the guitar player was on the synths and those portions of songs were lacking energy and it was not as interesting and we couldn't hear so well the synths in some portions. During those segments there were some interesting loops and beats.

Overall the band his way better when they play fast and energy driven songs.

The singer was really laid back, not taking this seriously really.

They made up a set list on the spot, arguing all the time what to play so the guitar player was never ready to play always tuning or changing his guitar because of the lack of organisation.

At the end of the show, I went in the back of the room and the voice seemed slightly better.

So not the best performance I've seen in this venue.

Setlist:

1. Anxiety
2. Silhouettes
3. March of Progress
4. Select Your Drone
5. Continental Shelf  
6. Memory
7. Degraded
8. Monotony 
9. Zodiac 
10. Stimulation
11. Death