To truly appreciate City and Colour's recent performance at the Fox in Oakland, CA, one must know the story behind the group.
The band first hit the emo scene in 2005 with the debut album Sometimes. While Canadian punk/hardcore outfit Alexisonfire was on tour preparing for its sophomore album, Watch Out, guitarist Dallas Green began sharing a more intimate side through the moniker, City and Colour.
Green performing a more bare bones set in 2010.
In 2008, the punk rocker turned singer/songwriter assembled a simplistic band to help orchestrate a more folksy sound with the release of Bring Me Your Love. By 2009, Green had grown a fan base outside of his Alexisonfire faithful. In those four years, fans witnessed a young emotional wordsmith transform into a powerful vocalist. With the release of Little Hell in 2011, the artist had shown his maturation in songwriting, with bluesy chord structures and a boastful confidence in arguably the most powerful voice to come out of the Canadian punk/hardcore movement. It was also this time that he departed Alexisonfire--creating the possibility to focus all efforts on City and Colour.
Fast forward to 2015, Dallas and company now exude a whole new style once again with the release of If I Should Go Before You. This time showcasing what Green is capable of when given some of Nashville's finest slide guitars, B3 Hammond humms and 3-part vocal harmonies.
Read More: Album Review: City and Colour - If I Should Go Before You
Now they are performing at one of Northern California's most cherished music venues. On this cold Sunday night, the band opened their performance with If I Should Go Before You’s first single, "Woman." Nine minutes of shoegaze put fans in a trance and teased what was to come for most of the evening--Bluesy ass rock underneath perfectly pitched vocals (it should be noted that Dallas and company have a great sound engineer, giving every sonic tone a home, while leaving space for Green's every falsetto and bellow.) Over the next hour, the band played mostly tracks from their last two records with a few classics sprinkled in under a new stylistic umbrella.
Bashfully thanking the crowd, the performers exited stage right. After a few roars from an unsatisfied fanbase, Dallas returned alone, with nothing but an acoustic in his hands and a harmonica wrapped around his neck. For the first time all night, he opened up to the audience, explaining his deepest sympathies to the recent tragedy in France. Green performed his upbeat classic "Against The Grain," as the backdrop illuminated the colors of France's National Flag. The lyrics resonated all too well:
"If you feel you've paid the price,
And your wounds should cease to heal
And everything you love in life spins like a winding wheel.
If you should wake to find you're abandoned,
And the road you've traveled leads to a dead-end
When death creeps in to play its part,
You must follow your heart,
You must follow your heart."
Dallas continued to take listeners through a musical time machine, all the way back to his first single "Save Your Scissors (2005)," before bringing the band back on stage for one last hoorah. It was nothing short of a perfect performance.
What makes City and Colour unique is its ability to develop and grow while gaining more industry traction. Beginning with what sounded like basement recordings, to folksy/indie songs about funerals, to now expressing Canada's version of the blues, this band has something for everyone. And that is statement not many readers will understand, until they see this group live.
Photos by Marc Fong
*Disclaimer: The words expressed in photo blog reviews do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Music Connection Magazine.
