Fantastic journey

I'm a big fan of Kurt Vile, and was kind of bummed when work obligations meant I couldn't make it to his show at Babylon in February. Fortunately but a few short months later he's back with band, and psychsters Real Estate in tow to boot. Unfortunately heavy traffic between Toronto and here meant the openers were delayed, so local psychedelic chap Matt Oxley was drafted on short notice to play a short set.

His audience was small - maybe half a dozen folks in the place were paying serious attention as he zipped his way through some reverbed tunes. There was also some audience howling on the last song.


Crazy Ocean at Babylon, July 21, 2010

Real Estate finally found their way to the club a bit past 10 p.m. and soon enough were on the stage soundchecking. Don't let the low-fi haze fool you, these guys have some sharp melodies lurking behind their laidback demeanour.


Real Estate at Babylon, July 21, 2010

Kurt Vile played a killer set. His heavily reverbed, barking delivery reminds me a bit of Bob Dylan, while his sound makes me think he's playing woozy music underwater. He had a couple of his Violators with him - Adam, also of War On Drugs, and Mike Zeng - in addition to Mary who played a big pedal harp. They had a good chunk of the audience swaying along .


Kurt Vile at Babylon, July 21, 2010

That was one freaky show.

• Show reminder: Royal Canoe, Giant Hand and The Amalgamation play Zaphod Beeblebrox; Hartford, In Lights, The Bypass and Something You Whisper perform at Mavericks; NLX, Tara Holloway and Balthorpe Alabama are upstairs at Cafe DeKcuf; the elmdale House hosts Sun Moon Earth Magic, Jenn Flynn, Katie Leigh, Well Fournier, and Parish. Porter is at the Avant-Garde.