Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Lake Street Dive loves making music to move you.
From the moment the Boston quintet strolled onto Vancouver’s Orpheum Theatre stage under an appropriate rotating disco ball, concertgoers knew what was coming was going to be awesome.
The reputation the group has as a live act is why it sells out the venue’s 2,700-plus seats every time it tours. To say it has acquired a diehard fan base since forming in 2004 doesn’t do the band’s following justice.
These people are devotees of the band’s immaculately well-crafted soul/pop. And why not?
Drummer Mike Calabrese, guitarist James Cornelison, singer/keyboardist Akie Bermiss, bandleader/bassist Bridget Kearney and lead singer Racheal Price all boast the kind of skills honed in the New England Conservatory of Music and other schools, each easily capable of leading and fronting their own combos.
Brought together under the auspices of playing improvise avant-country & western, the members found their sweet spot mixing ’70s blue-eyed soul à la Hall & Oates with the hook-laden feminine lyricism of Carol King and plenty of Stax and Motown tossed in.
Sure, it’s updated ’70s yacht rock, complete with the groovy and complex musicality of Steely Dan. But this yacht is solar and wind-powered and constructed of 100 per cent recycled materials and made with so much love. Plus, the sound was what any audiophile around would like to get out of their home system: Live, clean and electric.
No amount of showbiz slickness could fake the fun that all the members have playing bopping blues funk numbers like the opener Good Together, the title track to the group’s most recent recording, to 2021’s delightfully sly Hypotheticals. That song and the now de rigueur encore Good Kisser are the closest things the band has ever had to an actual hit.
Who cares?
With its spot-on, sinuous five-part harmonies and often surprising melodic and rhythmic transitions mutating standard pop songwriting, this is music that exists outside the contemporary charts. Where else can you be when you have a lead singer with an instrument like Price? Whether belting out the surprisingly straight-ahead rocker Far Gone, crooning the lounge lizard love lament Seats at the Bar or embracing the piano-backed balladry of Twenty-Five, her voice is a marvel.
In any other unit, she would be the main event. But Bermiss is a fantastic soulful vocalist. So good that he laid down a version of Shania Twain’s Still the One so unique from the original that it both remade the tune as well as reminding one of just how great that descending chorus chord progression is. He is also a wicked keyboardist with a penchant for perfect vintage synth solo like those he laid down on the slinky single Dance With a Stranger.
Calabrese and Cornelison are lockstep rhythm aces that craft amazing atmospheric grooves with space instead of flags. Kearney is an utterly brilliant funkmeister on the upright bass. Her bass solo was a master class in how to make four strings sing.
Together, this makes Party on the Roof’s girl group beat-meets-Latin rock into a song that brings the theatre to its feet because they can’t not dance. When Price sang, “in Kitsilan, they party on the beach,” people lost it.
Lake Street Dive is that rare example of a band whose creative spirit is so genuine that anyone who takes the time to listen is going to get a gift. The band is also clearly not going to change anything about that approach to try to grab a few more sets of ears either.
That’s what keeps people coming back time and time again to see them play.
If there was one complaint, it’s that the band wasn’t performing outside under the stars. They would be a perfect Vancouver Folk Festival main stage headliner.
English