Friday night I went to Schubas to see Wolf Parade. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera, so there aren't any shots to post to the photoblog (and they would have been great shots, too!). I must say, it was one of the best shows I've been to in awhile, one that fulfilled my need to be genuinely moved by a band, even if just for a brief moment. I've been really enjoying their new album, Apologies to the Queen Mary, but with all the buzz Wolf Parade's been getting lately, I didn't go in with too many expectations for their show for fear that I may be disappointed. Luckily for me, the band brought with them an amazing energy on stage that really excited me and the crowd.

Wolf Parade's songs are mostly split between two singers, guitarist Dan Boeckner and keyboardist Spencer Krug. Before going into the show, I didn't really notice a difference in vocals from song to song, but on Friday it became completely clear to me that all of my favorite songs were sung by Spencer. Dan had a great rough, smoky, Springsteen-esque rock voice, but Spencer's was weird and unique and beautiful- it was obvious he brought the more experimental force to the band, and his Frog Eyes influences were clear. In fact, I could hardly keep my eyes off of Spencer the entire night because everything about him was so fascinating- it was almost as if he was in a totally different band on stage. While the rest of the 4 band members (including a former member of Hot Hot Heat who took a break between songs to take a piss in the alleyway) rocked out like all good rock bands do, Spencer sat quietly in a corner behind his two keyboards, singing intensely with his eyes closed the entire show. He and his voice gave me chills. Their last song before the encore was the utterly amazing "I'll Believe in Anything," which seriously brought tears to my eyes. The song is one of my favorites of the year, and the band couldn't have done it more justice than they did. It's an anthem. My $12 were worth it for that song alone.

During their set, Wolf Parade debuted a brand new song (featuring Spencer on vocals) that absolutely blew me away. If that song is representative of the road WP is going down, I want to hear more.

The show wasn't perfect- a couple songs were nothing special, and they should have skipped out on the encore and just ended with "I'll Believe in Anything," since it was pretty obvious they'd run through all their good material during the main set. But I think you can forgive those sorts of things with a new band, so you know they have room to improve and grow. No one wants to see a band peak with one album and never live up to it again.

After the show, I went back and read the Pitchfork review of Apologies to the Queen Mary, and I must say it almost perfectly captures how I feel about the album. It's rare that I give a P4k review credit for more than wordy, self-referencing hooey, but this time I think they got it right.