WE ARE WOLVES + Sailboats Are White @ La Sala Rossa

By Trevor Kiernander - Ones and Zeroes - 09/16/2005

Well I am here once again to report some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that due to technical difficulties and the metro schedule, I was unable to check out The Gossip at La Sala Rossa on September 22. The good news is that We Are Wolves rocked my kneecaps off and my fists into the air!

I’ll start off first by not really reviewing Sailboats Are White, because I don’t really feel I have the capacity to constructively review a screamo, screamcore, whatever this kind of music this is. Please don’t take that the wrong way either. I may be way off, and these guys don’t really fall under either of these genres, but I’m just being honest in that I have actually never heard a band like this play live. They were however interesting, nonetheless. Hailing from Hamilton, these kids definitely seemed to fit the rock band aesthetic. And maybe that was just it, I’m just an old goat and I don’t get ‘these kids’ these days. I then leaned over and asked my two young cross-armed cohorts if they got it, or if it was just me. They both just gave me that look like “you want me to eat that?” All things aside, I did enjoy my first venture into unintelligible music, and I thank Sailboats Are White for that. I would also recommend them to fans of this style of music, as they seem pretty fit to make the move forward.

Now on to the goods, by golly! It was my first time finally getting to see We Are Wolves since one of their first introductions at a Concordia Orientation gig in a wood frame shack three years ago. And my God! While my one hand was punching the roof, the other was punching my own face for not getting out to see these guys sooner! It seemed like a rough start as they were trying to switch gear during the sets of Sailboat, but when they plugged in, these local faves picked up a momentum that got the whole place rioting.

Making the hometown stop at Sala Rossa off of a pretty meaty tour schedule (if you haven’t seen these boys yet, make sure you do before tix for their shows hit $30+ at breakneck speed), it seemed like 90% of the place was there to see the Wolves. I say this, because on my way out at 12:20am to catch the last metro, there weren’t too many bodies left in the joint whereas five minutes prior, you couldn’t move. Tearing the roof off of Sala is an understatement. Barrelling into "Little Birds", "L.L. Romeo", and "La Nature" off of their Non-Stop Je Te Plie En Deux album, I knew I was going to get my ass kicked. By the time they were blasting out "T.R.O.U.B.L.E.", I was already making plans to get as many of my friends from back home (Ontario) to get to see them at Xpace in Toronto (I don’t know if they missed out on greatness yet or not…). Like Gary Numan getting beat down with a mallet, We Are Wolves give one intense post-punk, synth-laced performance not to be missed.

[Ones And Zeroes is in a roving timeslot BUT is finally back. Check the schedule for its timeslot this week.]