Xiu Xiu, This Song Is a Mess But So Am I @ Poor Alex Theatre

I hadn't even considered the Gay Pride Weekend factor until about two days before this gig. I'm referring to both the composition of the audience as well as the likely non-coincidental scheduling of the gig on this particular weekend. Sure enough, the crowd was a smorgasbord of various sexual orientations and freek folk, the kind of people who think nothing of moving their bodies to the distorted, fucked up dance beats of a band like Xiu Xiu. Ditch the bulk of Toronto's "oh, we couldn't possibly dance at a gig and appear as though we're enjoying ourselves" indie scenesters and give me a cross-section of Xiu Xiu's Toronto fanbase any day of the week.

This Song Is a Mess But So Am I played a set filled with various take-offs of Xiu Xiu's "Brian the Vampire" -- chaotic, blustery noise with stage presence to match. The one-man band's name is as true to the music as any name you'll ever find. I don't consider the name to be reflexively critical, but it is an endearing statement of truth.

Many tracks from "Life and Live" are gorgeous and inspired, but over the course of a 15-track live record, the overly sparse instrumentation and song choices becomes snooze-worthy. Oh look, it's another plaintive guitar ballad filled with long gaps of silence and punctuated by whispers and screams. The three person live incarnation of Xiu Xiu is far more intruiging. Their laboratory of percussion and effects offer plenty of sonic distractions for the brain, particularly on rapturously received tracks such as "Crank Heart" and "I Luv the Valley". The quieter "La Foret" songs also make more sense when performed live amongst one hundred entranced strangers watching a man sing with a scrunched up face on a dimly lit stage.

Xiu Xiu tread a line between stark seriousness and indie-rock ironic detatchment. In short, sometimes you're not sure if they're joking or not (generally, they're not). They're the melodramatic friend who wails about how their life sucks and they want to die. You want to listen to them and make a few cracks and get them to lighten up, but you're afraid to do that just in case they are really serious about offing themselves. Thus, when Jamie Stewart screams the "vacation" rant during a ferocious version of "I Broke Up", he rolls his eyes into the back of his head in such a ghoulish manner that there's no way I'm making any cracks about it.