Caribou Bring Precision To The Opera House

Dan Snaith, the man behind Caribou, is the definition of unassuming. As we struggled to get past the bottleneck at the entrance to the Opera House on Saturday night, Snaith was almost denied entrance to his own show. That was until someone pointed out to security that he probably didn't need a ticket to watch himself perform. It didn't seem to phase Snaith in the least. The Dundas, Ontario, native's reserved nature might've been evident in how he handled himself in front of the crowd, but it was non-existent in the music pealing from the stage.

I showed up early to catch openers Born Ruffians, and they were phenomenal. The band have massively progressed since the first time I saw them perform at The Drake Hotel nearly two years ago. Lead singer and guitarist Luke Lalonde is firmly in control of his voice and his playing, and that of his bandmates, has become preternaturally swift. Extensive touring has served the group well as their spastic indie pop is catchy and their melodic idiosyncrasies expertly executed. After seeing the trio this past summer at the Wolfe Island Music Festival, I was excited about their debut full-length record. Their performance at the Opera House on Saturday night has turned that excitement into a near fever pitch as I was left awestruck by the Ruffians' performance.

Taking the stage a short time later, the staggeringly gifted Snaith was accompanied by three other players to help round out his sound. The quartet were astounding and recreated the precision of Caribou's compositions with a mathematician's attention to detail. Backed by technicolour projections of myriad geometric shapes pulsating and swirling on the screen, Snaith spent the majority of his time at the drums. Seeing as how he had someone else playing the drums as well, the rhythmic assault was simply monumental, much to the capacity crowd's delight. Most of the electronic minutae of Caribou's songs were delivered via a backing track, but that didn't detract in the least from the melodies churning on stage.

"She's The One" became a whole new beast live. On record the song is slickly laid-back; in person, it's a driving and affecting piece of pop music as good as any I've heard or seen this year. The band stuck pretty closely to this year's Andorra, and lead single "Melody Day," currently in heavy rotation on CBC Radio3, received the most rousing response. Still, it was hardly the best Caribou had on offer. "Sandy" and "After Hours" emerged as favourites in the 80-minute set that got most everyone nodding their heads and tapping their feet to the beat.

Snaith remained as reticent on the stage as he had been off it. He barely spoke outside of the songs save for a quick thanks to the audience. After the perfunctory encore, Snaith and co. left the stage as quietly as they had taken it. He might be unassumingly introverted but his music is anything but, and the crowd let him know it long after he'd retreated into the recesses of the Opera House.