NXNE 2008: The Disraelis @ The Silver Dollar
By: Carl Gouldson
The Disraelis carved out their corner of the North By Northeast's opening night as one of few groups in the festival who come off as established pros, those who take you infinitely more seriously than they take themselves.
The sophisticated Brit-pop three-piece sounded like there were more of them. The keep-up falls on the shoulders of singer/bassist, Cameron Jingles, whose vocals fall somewhere between the careless inhibition of grunge and those of Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer. The live show emanates energy, and in much abundance in the case of drummer, Dave Barnes - who is a consistent and creative mash-up, which he plays up as much as the genre allows.
They don't branch out much from their unique pop-ish niche, but never suggest any real reason why they should. Guitarist Colin Belfast is given free reign to travel the fret board through most numbers, adding accents and peaks peppered throughout his dominantly backup roll. Surrounded on the bill by more than a few acts who milked the mercy applause, they were certainly the act on the night the Silver Dollar would have bid for sans festival.
Their older stuff showcases more depth than that which made it onto their April EP release, Demonstration, but the response to it was about the same. Plagued by shifty sound levels all night, the Toronto natives not only provoked the festivals first impromptu jitterbug session (and only one, God willing), but also lived up to hype that built around them at the festival last year.
Click here for more of SoundProof's NXNE 2008 festival coverage.
