Akron/Family

Akron/Family

The night was still young after the Sigur Rós show, and I had plenty of options for entertainment. Acid Mothers Temple was at the Triple Rock, 13 & God was at the Walker, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah was at the 400 Bar. But I needed something that wouldn’t clash with the strange mood that Sigur Rós put me in. Fortunately, Akron/Family was also in the neighborhood. So I made the wise decision to walk down the street to the Entry for the second remarkable show of the night.

I arrived just in time for Toronto’s Great Lake Swimmers. GLS was touring as a three-piece (singer/songwriter Tony Dekker was backed by a drummer and a Bass/Wurlitzer player). This meant that their banjo player, who was so prominently featured on their new album, wasn’t present. That was totally fine, though. Their quietly passionate songs proved to be the perfect cool down from Sigur Rós’s emotionally draining performance. Exactly what I needed.


Great Lake Swimmers

I was really excited to see Akron/Family. They were responsible for not one, but two of the year’s most interesting albums: their self-titled debut, and The Angels of Light Sing “Other People” (they played as Michael Gira’s backing band). Judging by the sheer beauty of their debut, I was expecting their set to be similar to the very pretty set played by Great Lake Swimmers. I was wrong! Akron/Family was weeeirrrd live! They weren’t too concerned with replicating the intricacies of their album. In fact, they weren’t too concerned with taking themselves seriously at all. To my surprise, Akron/Family transformed into an epic jam band for spazzes. Unstructured experimentation and a cappella freakouts mixed with fragments of songs and running jokes…it was awesome! My night was complete.

Akron/Family is an incredibly creative band with a lot of tricks up their sleeves. I’m looking forward to their new material. I won’t have to wait long (their debut and their self-released tour CD is enough to hold me over until Halloween when they release a split album with Angels of Light). The future is looking very bright for Akron/Family.


Akron/Family singalong (no, that's not my old roommate Brian in the gray shirt)

Archives:
Great Lake Swimmers @ Emo’s (SXSW): March 16, 2005