Ok, saw Islands live and uh, I don't know what to think. Their music being all over the place genre-wise does not make for a very even live experience. Also the fact that the main guy is an AMAZING guitarist (see: Arm's Way) and the latest album has almost NO MAJOR GUITAR songs, kinda is another weird factor.
It's like at times the show was rocking. These times consisted of when:
A) They played a rock heavy song and it was intense and the main dude was jamming the guitar
B) They played a pop electro song and everyone was dancing around and it was like you were in a club for 5 mins (ie: when they played Creeper)
Then about half the show was:
C) They played mellow/weird stuff and it didn't really work that well live. Like I love Foreigner on the Vapours album with its sitting on a beach feel, but it absolutely did not work live.
Then there were just meh things:
-The singer did not respect the audience AT ALL. He never said a word besides "hello los angeles, how are you?" to which he didn't even let the audience reply. He also did the whole "I'm a rock star" thing with shades and a cape and pretending the audience doesn't exist at all. I'm guessing he's not a people person, which is fine as I'm not either, but you gotta respect the audience.
-They played sloppy. The singer would come in late after missing singing cues a bunch of times and then try to catch up with the line.
-They were all drinking beer. This is just a personal pet peeve of mine, but I feel it's unprofessional for bands to be drinking beer onstage between songs, especially if they're playing sloppy. Just goes to the whole lack of respect for the audience thing.
-The setlist was really short because it was basically a "play the new album" concert and the new album is like 30-40 mins long. The total setlist was maybe 70 mins. Got on at 10:20pm, left at 11:30pm.
-I thought the band was a 6 member band, yet there were only 4 people there. The violin was definitely missing and one guy had to do both keyboard and rhythm guitar. I'm guessing they didn't bring their violin person because the new album has none. This is probably why they didn't play Arm's Way stuff since that album is STEEPED in violin. When they did play The Arm it felt really empty and missing pieces. A shame because Arm's Way is my favorite album of theirs and I was hoping they'd play a decent amount of it.
I think they played everything off Vapours besides The Drums and Shining. 2 songs off Arm's Way: The Arm & Creeper. 5 songs off Return to Sea: Rough Gem, Don't Call Me Whitney Bobby, Where there's a Will there's a Whalebone, and ended the encore with Swans.
Was still an enjoyable show and it had its moments of greatness, but would not rush to see them live again.
Oh and some dude was rocking a Half-life 2 shirt. $10 says he was a gaffer.
