Just like at Glastonbury the other week, late afternoon of the final day of 2000Trees Festival sees the appearance of legendary Canadians.
Except here, we have two of their finest exports, rather than one, and neither of them is Shania Twain. Win-win.
The two in question are Cleopatrick and Death From Above 1979, and boy, it’s a tantalising prospect. Two of the most exciting duos in music today, one right after the other. Trees bookers, you spoil us, as usual.
DFA are the veterans. Formed in 2001, the Toronto pair received considerable acclaim for their 2004 debut album, You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine, a gloriously raw but surprisingly danceable slice of punk rock.
The band split up soon, and the rhetoric at the time suggested that the prognosis was terminal. By 2011, though, they had reformed, and have managed to keep it together ever since, releasing three very decent albums along the way. Fiery and politicised, the band’s hectic 2024 tour schedule is testament to their ongoing appeal.
Cleopatrick, meanwhile, formed in 2015, and quickly built a following behind a series of quite brilliant early EPs. Hailing from the small Ontario town of Cobourg, about 100km east of Toronto, Cleopatrick’s music is mostly a portrait of smalltown Canadian life.
Their sound is more bluesy, probably owing more to The Black Keys or Highly Suspect than DFA, but equally raw in its own way. Their debut album, 2021’s Bummer, was particularly abrasive.
Like DFA, Cleopatrick have built up a particularly strong fanbase in the UK, listing their 2022 show at London’s Electric Ballroom as the biggest show of their career up to that point. This is certainly backed up by their late-afternoon billing on the Main Stage here, and an impressive gathering has shown up to witness what had been billed as their only UK show of 2024.
The band waste no time in getting the crowd fired up, with a massive moshpit emerging for ‘Good Grief’, ‘The Drake‘, and ‘Daphne Did It’. A hefty proportion of the crowd seem to know every lyric of every song, even the old stuff, which is really quite impressive.
Unfortunately, the set loses its way a little after this. Having riled the crowd right up, a few too many slow songs in a row leads to a painful loss of momentum, culminating in the frankly ridiculous spectacle of wave after wave of crowdsurfers during ‘Why July’, a beautiful song that deserves a much more reverential response, particularly when delivered as tenderly as it is here.
The energy recovers somewhat with the always-brilliant ‘Hometown’, but the damage is done. It’s easy to blame crowd boneheadery, but in truth, the setlist really isn’t well thought-out for a crowd that’s nearing the end of a three-day bender. A great shame, really. That said, we do see plenty of what makes them such a well-loved band, relatable tales and emotive delivery that really resonate for a lot of us.
With the end of Cleopatrick’s set coinciding exactly with the start of DFA’s, the end of ‘Family Van’ sparks a mass exodus to the Axiom for the latter. For those of us who miss the first few minutes, though, it doesn’t take long to get up to speed.
DFA’s set tonight is part of a wider UK (and world) tour for the 20th anniversary of You’re a Woman…, and they play it in full and in order, without any chatter in between at all. It’s absolutely brilliant, totally engrossing, a stunning reminder of what a great album it truly is. It’s staggering how fresh it still feels after all this time.
Where Cleopatrick are heartfelt and tender, DFA are just utterly savage. Jesse F. Keeler created a bass sound in 2004 that was kinda unprecedented, and it really remains unsurpassed. Tonight, we get to hear that sound in all its feral glory, scratching down the strings on ‘Romantic Rights’, booming on ‘Blood On Our Hands’, a runaway train (in a good way) on ‘You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine’. it is a beautiful thing to witness.
If anything, they are an even better live band now than they were back then. Sebastien Grainger has never had the strongest live singing voice, but he uses what he has very effectively now. This band has never been about artistic perfection, more about raw power, but they have achieved just enough control over their music to get the best of both worlds.
It feels very relevant to see this album performed here in the UK. We have had a glut of brilliant two-piece rock bands in this country over the last two decades, and while the White Stripes predated them, DFA were really the band that showed just what a phenomenal noise can be achieved with just four arms and two heads.
All in all, a rather cracking afternoon of entertainment. This Canadian thing could really catch on, eh? Maybe Saturday afternoon next year could be Bad Waitress and The OBGMs, now that would be a fucking party.
