mod club review

LIVE: DAVID USHER PLAYS WITH HIS FAMILY

Author: Caitlin Hotchkiss
Source: Chart Magazine
URL: www.chartattack.com
Date: April 28, 2005

You've got to hand it to David Usher: even with his music moving more towards the MuchMoreMusic oeuvre, he can still pack the Mod Club with young bodies eager for a good rock show.

First off, it's interesting to see that even with a band as large as seven people, they all interact like a family. Sure, three of them have an extensive past together — keyboardist Kevin Young and bassist Jeff Pearce are also Moist alumni, along with David himself of course — but even with new/old band members Gerry Finn (guitar), Lindsay Hilliard (violin), Julia Galios (backup vocals) and the returning Chris Taylor-Munro (drums), it's amazing to see how tight they all are, often sharing laughs and jokes onstage.

While they're all chums, the performance could have used some tightening of its own. There were more than a few missed cues, stumbled-over song lyrics and a couple moments of "uh, now what?" silence as the band attempted to compose themselves. But the looseness and spontaneity of the show (particularly a random cover of the Bloodhound Gang's "The Bad Touch" in the middle of the otherwise-serious current single Love Will Save The Day) saved the night from disarray. It was hard not to giggle when a deep male voice in the audience hollered for David to "take it off!"

As for Mr. Usher himself, his voice is still as strong as ever and now that he's exploring his range, it's difficult to imagine that the man ever has a bad vocal night. From engaging in the bouncy pop of Hey Kids to rising from a whisper to a scream and back again on Babyskin Tattoo, he hasn't lost a single octave.

His age is showing however, as he's no longer stage-diving and jerking himself around in spastic dances instead restricting his movements to weird robotic arm-twitches. But he's far more comfortable conversing with the crowd, including entertaining requests (many for Butterfly, a few for St. Lawrence River, and "JUST PLAY 'PUSH'!"), bantering back and forth with audience members, telling stories about his bandmates and even waxing political on current affairs.

Even though there was significantly less moshing and head-banging, the crowd hadn't quite reached their Carlsberg years, and there were equally excited reactions to both quieter numbers like new song Long Goodbye and louder rockers like Jesus Was My Girl.

If you showed up expecting to hear some of the old Moist hits, you were bound to be disappointed — David's struck all Moist songs from the set list and included only two songs (Devil By My Side, and the Message Home encore) from his previous solo album, Hallucinations. However, by sticking with the memorable hits from Morning Orbit and a few lesser-known gems from Little Songs to appease the hardcore fans in the crowd, he crafted a well-rounded show with something for everybody.

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