By: Lauren Garbutt –
Warpaint. (Photo: Neil Van/Aesthetic Magazine Toronto)
Los Angeles band Warpaint dominated the stage last night in front of a packed room of entranced fans at the Danforth Music Hall. The all-female four-piece was powerful, captivating, and sensual. Opening act, Cate le Bon, preceded their dreamy performance.
The Welsh-born singer-songwriter is currently touring with Warpaint as a four-piece band, and the style of music and vocals complimented the headliners nicely, adding cohesion to the show. The band was well received by the crowd as they performed an energetic and confident set, with le Bon’s powerful, haunting, and Nico-esque vocals swooning the crowd.
Warpaint kicked off their set with “Feeling Alright” from their self-titled January release. The beautiful, ambient, and textured harmonies that fans love Warpaint for sounded amazing in a live environment and were some of the high points of their performance, though the heavier, louder segments of the show also had the crowd’s rapt attention and helped to balance out the more mellow tracks. Emily Kokal’s mention of Toronto’s own Holy Fuck as the “hometown heroes” also had fans in attendance cheering.
They crafted their set with songs from the new album as well as previous releases, with older gems such as “Composure”, “Undertow” and “Billie Holiday”, which had all four members singing together beautifully and exemplified how seemingly perfect the members of this band are as a unit. From the new album, the band showed off ear candy such as the synth-laden “Biggie”, “Disco//Very” and “Love is to Die”.
The songs linked together nicely, taking those in attendance through a smooth ride of subtle, ghostly, layered vocals, welcome tempo changes, and an intricate, hypnotic rhythmic section. Working to create a rich atmosphere, the vocals at times became instruments themselves, further enhancing the dreaminess of it all. On stage, each of the members were enchanting to watch, and all were in their element, grooving and playing a variety of instruments throughout the set, including keyboards, percussion instruments and an electric drum pad.
The encore, which they had decided upon early in the show even though they are “a farce these days” as Wayman mentioned, included “Bees” and one of their most popular songs from their debut album Exquisite Corpse, “Elephants”, which they extended into instrumental bliss and had the crowd clapping and singing along.
Warpaint’s newest record was much-anticipated and has not disappointed. The live show was a nice blend of material and while their recordings sound great, the live show is really where the band shines. This was evident throughout the performance and during the instrumental points of the show where it seemed obvious how much these talented ladies enjoy working together and jamming.
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Warpaint
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Cate Le Bon
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Aesthetic Magazine | Album Reviews, Concert Photography, Interviews, Contests 
Great review, but it was actually Emily Kokal who gave the shout out to Holy Fuck.
Posted by Sara | March 27, 2014, 2:59 pmThanks Sara
Posted by Aesthetic Magazine Toronto | March 27, 2014, 3:24 pmIt was a great show!
Posted by Connor McBrine-Ellis | March 27, 2014, 11:24 pmReblogged this on Perdidos en el cyberespacio.
Posted by jigokushounen90 | March 29, 2014, 5:45 pm