The Besnard Lakes are a band that somehow manages to sound both delicate and massive at the same time: solid guitar riffs and driving beats contrast their hauntingly cool vocals. Their most recent album, The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse, features members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and other musicians who contribute strings and horns to the fill out their sound. The band is led by a husband and wife duo of Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, and the two harmonize on a number of songs. They are the kind of band that gives me chills every time that I listen to them. One might think that their songs are completely negative with titles like “Disaster” and “Devastation,” but there is something buried in the music that inspires hope.
In other words, this is a band that should be awesome live, but my experience on Friday night did not live up to my expectations. The main problem was the venue. There was a significant amount of feedback during their set, which is hard to avoid on such a small stage, but an experienced sound engineer should be able to compensate for that. The band seemed too big for the room, even though the floor was mostly empty. They should’ve sounded powerful over a large sound system, but instead they just sounded ear-piercingly loud. The instruments didn’t sound crisp and distinct like they do on the recordings, and I felt like I was being bombarded by a wall of noise. Perhaps the show would’ve sounded better if there were more bodies in the audience to dampen the noise.
The band was also a bit off that evening. Goreas forgot to plug in her bass and had to fix it midway into the first song. Their banter was half-hearted and awkward, probably due to the small crowd and technical issues. I did not get the sense that they were experienced performers at all. Everyone has off nights, and given the chance I’d probably give them another try. At least I had some awesome peppermint tea before the show started.
