Brasstronaut at Heroes Pub

An earlier version of this article was previously published in The Omega.

Brasstronaut, a six-piece experimental-pop band from Vancouver, played at a very busy Heroes on Wednesday night(November 10, 2010).

     Unfortunately, the crowd seemed to have different ideas for the night; one half of the crowd was there for the music and the other half was there to take advantage of the fact that there was no classes the next day.  Though this did not seem to stop anyone, including the band, from having fun.

     Brasstronaut has had an extremely busy and successful year.  In March, they released their first full-length album and then won the Echo Songwriting Prize.  They also made the long list for the prestigious Polaris Music Prize. 

     As if this hasn’t kept them busy enough, they have “done a substantial amount of touring this year,” returning from the U.K. so recently that they were still feeling jet-lagged, and are currently in the process writing new material for their next album.

     Before the show started, I had a chance to sit down with Brennan Saul, the drummer, and Sam Davidson, who grew up in Kamloops and plays the clarinet and the electronic wind synthesizer.  When I asked them if they could describe their unique sound, they hesitated to define it. 

"[There is] such a mix of different stuff in there that it is really hard to classify,” Saul said.

 "It is hard to want to pick a few words simply because the moment you choose too many defining words people have expectations and we’re certainly all about wrecking expectations," Davidson said.

     The local band BluElla opened the night with a fairly low-key set in front of an uninterested crowd.  By the time Brasstronaut started their set, Heroes was packed and noisy.  To Brasstronaut’s credit they seemed to feed off the crowd’s energy, playing particularly energetic versions of Lo Hi Hopes and Requiem for a Scene.

     Half way through the set, Edo Van Breeman, the lead singer, asked if someone in the crowd would body surf, since it had never been done at one of their shows before.  It took a couple more songs before someone worked up the courage to get on top of the crowd and suddenly it seemed like everyone wanted to.  In the middle of the song Hearts Trompet someone from the crowd hopped on stage and started talking to Van Breeman.  Van Breeman nodded as if they were agreeing on something, and then handed over the mike to their temporary new band member, who promptly started screaming into it as if he was fronting a punk band. Van Breeman and the rest of his band seemed as bewildered and surprised as the rest of us, but they also seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. 

     Slow Knots was the set closer and the floor erupted into a particularly energetic 'mosh-pit' as people went flying into the stage, knocking over equipment and band members. 

Not a single beat was missed, but at the end of the song a man leapt onto the stage, making a slashing motion across his throat, and the show was over. 

I went and talked to Edo after the show. 
“What just happened?" I said.

"That was awesome," he said.

"That has never happened at one of our shows before.”  

After all, Brasstronaut is all about wrecking expecations.