After a solid two months of touring their fantastic Matador Records debut LP Versions of Modern Performance , young Chicago band Horsegirl dropped in to play a packed Velvet Underground for a performance on Friday night. Accompanied by LA drone-pop band Dummy, the show marked their first, and what’s certainly not to be their last, Canadian visit.
After a brief set from local band 9million, Dummy took the stage. Performing their psych infused droney-pop songs, and accompanied with projected images, the band felt like they would have been right at home had they been performing a Wavelength showcase here in the mid-2000s. Their set fused elements of krautrock and pop, with sporadic bursts of noise and dreamy vocals that would have been enough of a reason for anyone to drop into Velvet for the night.
As the venue filled up, Horsegirl took to the stage and quietly went about their business. Perhaps it was their youth and just getting used to playing for larger crowds, or maybe the fact that it was one of the last shows of their tour and they weren’t really feeling it, but they decided mostly to let their music do the talking, aside from a couple of quick quips about visiting Niagara Falls for the first time and how crazy it was to be playing in Canada.
The set started off quite strong, with a performance of “World of Pots & Pans” and “Ballroom Dance Scene,” the latter featuring a fantastic swell of rising waves of guitar that was released separately prior to their album. The highlight of the night came a few songs later with an uptempo version of their single “Anti-Glory” accentuated by the pounding drums and shouts of “Dance!” that had the crowd complying in the way any shoegaze crowd would dance – bobbing along and swaying side to side.
The set continued for another 20-30 mins or so, with spectacular versions of “Beautiful Song”, “Dirtbag Transformation (Still Dirty)” and the other highlight being “Sea Life Sandwich Boy”, their other song released prior to their LP. It’s a bit disappointing that the band closed out their set with an extremely abbreviated version of “Billy”, because up until then it had been a fantastic set.
After a brief delay, the trio came back out for an encore and spoke more than they had the entire night; telling a story of how they recently saw Guided By Voices, and since then had been covering the song “As We Go Up, We Go Down.” It was a charming story, and a reminder that despite their sound being reminiscent of many of the great bands of Matador’s past, they really are a young band just getting started. For a first visit it wasn’t extremely memorable, but definitely showed glimpses of what the band can, and should be.
