Wild Nothing at the Opera House

Wild Nothing took the stage of the Opera House on Monday, November 12^th.

Jack Tatum, who writes and records all of the music (he performs alongside a live band), put out his latest album titled “Indigo” this past August. Although most of his albums take on a Shoegaze/Dream Pop sound, this perpetuates the sound on a much heavier basis. Indigo sounds more 80’s than ever, evidently inspired by The Cure. His previous album, Life of Pause, took on a more Psychedelic and New Wave style, but he returns back to his 80’s sound which he perfects, with Indigo.

He started the set about 15 minutes earlier than scheduled, opening with Nocturne, which the crowd seemed to enjoy. Attendees came trickling in late, but got right into the music.

Energy level throughout the performance was decent, but you can’t expect much more than that for a shoegazey show. Lighting was simple, but was perfect for the style of this show. Sound quality was pretty good for the most part, especially considering the show was at The Opera House, which sometimes lacks in sound quality.

Golden Haze was played at about twice the pace than the tempo normally would be, which was disappointing. It was sort of a Pearl Jam Even Flow kind of moment. It’s known that the band always rushes through that song live as they’re sick of playing it. They know everyone loves it, but they rush through it anyway. It didn’t appear as if he was exactly enjoying playing this track. He got a bit more on tempo towards the end of the track, but overall this one was disappointing.

Whenever I was a fantastic performance. His previous tour did not feature brass, so to see him feature this instrumental aspect in the show was new and exciting. Not only was it featured, but there was an extended solo for the brass player, which took the audience away in the moody performance featuring purple and yellow lighting.

The show was closed out with an encore featuring Chinatown, A Dancing Shell, and Shadow. This was the perfect combination of older crowd favourites. All were performed well with perfect pacing, and crowd reaction.

Tatum puts on an entertaining and moody show. Perhaps he could consider adding in a few more visual aspects, but for the most part it’s just about everything you would want out of a chillwave/80’s style concert. Definitely worth it.