...Said the Whale and Hannah Georgas @ St James Hall

I took a trip down to St James Hall for the first show of a two show performance by these two Vancouver groups. It was the early show designed to invite the all ages crowd but it worked best for my schedule so I took my old wrinkled self to see it. First thing I noticed was how stylish these teenage youngsters were, seems they have taken the indie look and made it a movement with some young enthusiasm. Another thing the youngsters brought was great energy for the music and it was nice surprise because the shows so far in Vancity have lacked a little on the crowd enthusiasm side.
First up was Hannah Georgas, whose sound has been getting a little attention lately as Ive heard she has a few songs in the commercial arena. Her sound does make you think of something Starbucks would endorse. Unfortunately, I do not find anything new in her stuff, she sounds an awful lot like Missy Higgins to me and she does not bring the uniqueness that other Canadian female singer-songwriters can bring (thinking of Jill Barber, Julie Doiron and recent listen Valery Gore). Her set did start off strong with some of her better songs, 'Chit Chat' and the 'Beat Stuff', but she tried to increase the tempo in the middle and it went a little off the tracks for me.
Next was the set by Said the Whale. Second time for me with these guys but the first was at the Red Dog in Peterborough with some horrible sound so I was keen to give them another shot. Their set was a little dissappointing for me and I was continuously contemplating leaving early but the fact they had not played 'Curse of the Currents' kept me there in hopeful anticipation. It seemed they were not going to play it after finishing up their second song of their encore and then they turned the lights down, pushed away the mics and belted out an amazing version of the tune as their last song of the night. This made the show all the worthwhile and you can find a video of this performance here.
P.S. Phoenix just did a take-away-show, awesome