Black Mountain Bridge Eras

The Opera House

Toronto, ON

on Sep 27 2008

Scott Bryson (CHARTattack)

09/29/2008 12:55pm

There are two types of people who attend Black Mountain shows: 20-somethings who are hip to good music; and 40-somethings who heard from 20-somethings that Black Mountain are the reincarnation of the rock 'n' roll heroes they grew up admiring — Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep and Black Sabbath.

If this Opera House show was proof, there's now no doubt the Vancouver quintet have completely left behind the playful nature that was found in tracks like "No Satisfaction" from their self-titled debut. Today's Black Mountain focus intently on the resurrection of classic rock.

It was also made especially evident by this Polaris Music Prize weekend show (their In The Future sophomore disc is short-listed for the award) that singer Amber Webber plays a much more significant role in the band than a CD can demonstrate. Her singing accentuated and differentiated every memorable moment of Black Mountain's explosive set. It was immediately evident when she took the stage that she was unhappy with her assigned placement — her microphone was placed dead centre — but she sucked up the resulting spotlight and never once looked out of place.

Black Mountain were definitely not afraid to mix the quiet with the loud — an aesthetic that was defined by opening song "Tyrants." The near-capacity crowd was just as silent during the noiseless parts as they were during the eardrum-splitting crescendos. Steve McBean: how do you and that one guitar manage to sound like an army?

The night's most pleasantly surprising musicianship came from bassist Matt Camirand, who spends much of his time playing under the Blood Meridian moniker. Camirand was simply on fire and bore little resemblance to the man that sometimes takes the stage solo to exhibit introspective country tunes.

More than once during their set, Black Mountain were joined on stage by members of openers Jesse Sykes And The Sweet Hereafter. The added instrumentation, while not unwelcome, wasn't really needed to put this show over the top. Sykes and company did an exemplary job in the warm-up slot. Their brand of rock was in the same vein as Black Mountain's, but they were subdued enough that there was never any danger they would upstage the headliners.