We Are Scientists at The Fox Cabaret Saturday July 7, 2018
The New York City-based indie pop rockers known as We Are Scientists, brought their live show antics to The Fox Cabaret, Saturday night in Vancouver. The duo of guitarist/vocalist Keith Murray and bassist Chris Cain have been making music together for twenty years and are currently touring in support of their sixth album, Megaplex, released late April. The album includes some of the freshest alternative pop hits of the year and the guys did a hell of a job showing some of them off in the live setting.
They couldn’t have picked a better spot to host the show either; the former porn theatre provided just the right amount of space for the roughly 100 guests in attendance. About a third of those guests were hanging out at 8 when opening act, Beverly took to the stage. The dream-pop four piece from Brooklyn eased the blossoming crowd into things with a chill and head-bouncing set of hazy pop songs. Led by female vocalist and guitarist Drew Citron, the half-hour set flowed from one song to the next, with little variation between each.
The band has been associated with fellow New York artist, Frankie Rose and their sound is basically a rawer approach to the same dream-pop formula. The crowd received them well and the guys of We Are Scientists shouted applause from their merch table to the side of the floor, where they had all their LPs and a few tees for sale. “They are one of the best bands I’ve seen or heard,” Cain would say later. Whether the crowd agreed with this opinion is up for debate.
Most attendees of the night crowded in during the half hour break between bands. The Cabaret was finally starting to feel like a real rock show when We Are Scientists got on stage at 9. Murray took to the crowd’s left of the stage, sporting his wavy ash blonde hair with a denim vest over a white shirt, while Cain held ground on the right, donning a black suit jacket over a white button-up. Their studio and touring drummer for the past two albums, Keith Carne, sat behind the kit at the rear of the stage.
They kicked the set off with the bass-heavy single, “Your Light Has Changed” off their latest. This transitioned without pause into their first-album banger, “The Great Escape,” which to no surprise, saw increased energy from most attendees. Like so many bands that burst forth with a successful debut, We Are Scientists has never received the same level of attention since their own. Though their fan-base may not have been so consistent, the guys haven’t stopped putting out stunning alternative pop songs over the years, and they displayed the best from each of their six albums during the set.
2016’s heavy hitter “Buckle”, made its appearance early on; third album single “Rules Don’t Stop” was an absolute blast, and album number two’s big hit “After Hours” had members of the crowd singing along with a passion. The chill-inducing “Dumb Luck” from 2014’s TV en Francais started off the three-song encore, followed by the 2010 single, “Nice Guys” that provided one of the most impactful hooks of the night. They ended with the first album deep-cut, “Textbook,” a rather tame finish to what was otherwise a wild set.
While over a quarter of the tracks in the set were from their oldest release, it was still a balanced group of songs. Tracks like “This Scene Is Dead” and “Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt” have got to be setlist staples, and it’s no wonder that these guys continue to go back to such stellar tracks. They played nearly as many new jams, and for any fans in attendance who may have drifted from the band in recent years, hopefully they left with a reason to check out their newer material.
