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10th May 2002 — Vancouver Music Festival, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Setlist
Provided by Paul Choy & Philip Tong.
Cloudless
Sunrise
To Be
Everywhere
Loved
Shining Road
Future Song
Flute Song
Lilies
Far Away
Adrift
Review(s)
the doors were scheduled to open at 8pm (with two opening acts) so i
sauntered into the club at about 9:20pm and spotted paul and jim setting up
on stage. (the dj was spinning the cool marilyn manson cover of "tainted
love".) to my surprise, at 9:30 they cut the music and introduced cranes on
stage --it turns out that i missed the opening acts! (i figured cranes
would only hit the stage at 11pm or so.)
the sound was a bit muddled at first. alison's voice was buried in the mix
for "cloudless' and most of "sunrise", and due to the quiet nature of the
first three cuts, the mood was a little downbeat. (i thought the choice of
opening numbers was a bit odd; i would have preferred a crazy heavy opening
like "give" or "fourteen".) However, by the time they started strumming
"everywhere", the energy picked up and the folks at the front started
bouncing around.
alison looked lovely in a black halter top and a sarong-type skirt, and tied
her hair in cute little ponytails. she looked comfortable on stage and
smiled to the adoring crowd inbetween songs. very little stage banter
except for the announcement of the next song.
funniest moment: alison flubbed the lyrics to the second verse of
"everywhere" which had jim and paul trading grins, but they recovered well.
the new songs came across very well, although i must say that the strongest
tracks were the older ones: "loved" is wicked live! alison camped it up
for "lilies", and they saved the best for last: the one-two punch of a
beautiful "far away" juxtaposed with the punishing onslaught of "adrift".
my one quibble was that the set was too short-- the club imposed a curfew on
the band, so they didn't perform any encores, despite the chants of "clear"
from the crowd.
i got a chance to chat with alison after the gig; she was super super
sweet!! no video planned for "future songs", unfortunately.
Reviewed by Paul Choy
The Cranes performance in Vancouver was well worth experiencing. The only
disappointment was that for some reason, their set was cut shorter than
other shows on their tour. Alison Shaw gave an explanation and apology at
the end but I didn't catch what she said. There was something mentioned
about by-laws, management or something...
The venue was at the Luvafair, which was primarily a club and not well
suited for live bands. The result was a fuzzy and unbalanced sound. I don't
think they had a proper soundcheck either. The crowd was a decent size and
quite enthusiastic. It was good seeing so many local Cranes fans. I can't
remember the opening band's name but they held their own with a "shoegazer"
sound.
At the end of it all, the band spent some time relaxing and chatting to
people from the audience. They displayed their usual demure attitude and
were a receptive to meeting their fans.
Here is the set they played. Unfortunately, they didn't perform any encores.
They were finished around 10:45 pm.
[setlist cut, see above]
Even though it was a all too short show, it was well worth it for me.
Reviewed by Philip Tong
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