No matter how many times I go to RICHARDS ON RICHARDS, regardless of the good bands that play, like
FUCKED UP and
WHITE LUNG, I can't bring myself to like that venue.
The stage is too high, and the sound is only good in 1/18th of the audience area, so if you're really stoked on the band and want to be right close to the stage, forget about hearing the vocals. Forget about hearing anything other than muted guitar sounds and some drum fills.
Also, the drinks are too expensive. The cheapest beer is a bottle of Canadian for $5.50. Maybe this is cheap for some people, but if you're used to $3.00 bottles, or if you've ever drank in Portland, $5.50 is an abominable amount of money for 341ml of watery alcohol.
Anyhow. The promoter made WHITE LUNG go on way too early. FUCKED UP and
CRYSTAL ANTLERS hadn't even showed up yet, and it was 9 or 9:30 when they went on stage. And there were a fair amount of people, but many showed up in between sets. It was 11pm before the giant school bus pulled up and CRYSTAL ANTLERS got on stage.
They kind of sound like a jam band that's gone to a big city and done weird city drugs, danced to weird techno music at weird underground basement raves, then returned to a not-so-big city to record an album. I liked them, and they were nice dudes to hang out with after the show and they let me eat their greenroom hummus.
FUCKED UP was as good as always, especially the first three seconds of the set when Damien attempted to stand on top of a monitor and instead slipped and hurtled into the crowd. Luckily someone was able to save him from serious pain.
I was bummed on the turn out for the show; Taylor even turned to me at one point to state the obvious.
"Man, Vancouver is embarassing."
Because the sound was terrible and the crowd was low energy, thus making the band lower energy, it kept bouncing back and forth until one point when I looked behind me and the floor space was just filled with a big empty gap, with some kids lining the back on bar stools.
They should have played a smaller venue. With better sound, and cheaper beer. Like the Emergency Room.
Or Pub 340, if they weren't into firing people so much.
The night ended with tired eyes, and Nardwuar interviewing F'd Up on their Mormon school bus. Then after tracking down a diesel gas station and driving to some expensive but delicious food at the Naam, it was 4 in the morning. I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to google map out directions to the airport.
(stolen from the lovely 
