Cloud Nothings with lvl up at Lee’s Palace

Photos by Daniela Tantalo

Indie Rock Band Cloud Nothings took the stage at Lee’s Palace on Friday night, as concert goer’s applauded their entrance to the stage before opening with energetic performance of “Pattern Walks”. Fans were excited for this show as it was their first time being back in Toronto since Camp Wavelength, and also the fact that their new album “Life Without Sound” had just premiered that day.

The setlist had a good variety from all albums however, songs from album “Attack on Memory” definitely received the best crowd response, as most songs are crowd favorites. With this being said, the performance of “Stay Useless” was rather disappointing. It was easy to tell that the band wasn’t really enjoying playing the hit, as it sounded somewhat distorted and vocals were just kind of thrown out there. I couldn’t tell if he simply just couldn’t hit the notes, or just didn’t care- or maybe both. I could understand why they would be sick of playing that song, but at-least put some effort in for the fans, especially those who have been waiting to see that song live like myself. Other than that performance, most songs were done very well. It would have been nice to see a bit more energy, but at-least the music sounded pretty good. Sometimes the sound made it hard to hear the instruments sound as distinct than they should be however, this may be the fault of the venue more than the band.

Performance of “Fall In” was spot on, and “Wasted Days” blew my mind. The 9 minute track contains ups, downs, and exciting interludes. Hearing this live and performed so well, was amazing. Most bands avoid performing longer songs like so or will shorten the song however, Cloud Nothings performed the entire track so well done.

Unfortunately, the crowd was a little too rowdy. Lots of moshing and crowd surfing, but a lot of drops and some fights as well. Following encore performance of 2014 hit “I’m Not Part of Me”, there was some fighting and yelling coming from the pit. Bass player TJ Duke told the crowd to cool down and if they wanted to stop being stupid they would play more songs and if not then “fuck you, you can leave”. Following this left kind of a sour vibe in the room, and they closed the show with “Cut You”, but the band also was not that into it. Aside from that, it was an enjoyable show that fans could immerse themselves in.