So I had no idea who the opener would be for the Matthew Good and Our Lady Peace concert… no clue… didn’t even think to look… just went blindly, happy for the main events…

Then these people show up on stage and break into song and I’m like, what? This is really good… Who are these people?

Ears peeled now, senses exploring, focused, paying attention… like crap! Seriously, they are realllly good!  I love this song!  and this song!  and that song… all the songs!

I am kinda captivated… The singer, at moments, reminds me of Kate Bush.  Just a tone or delivery here and there… At other moments not so much and I can’t really place the style of music.  It’s not really pop, its not really rock… softer, melodic, but not really adult contemporary, not really alternative either?

But why do I need a box to put this in anyways?  Maybe I’m loving this because its outside the box?

“Who are they?” we ask each other while they play on, drawing us in and in. Who is this!? They are frickin brilliant!

“We are Ellevator.” they soon after state.  “We’ve got a new EP coming out soon, you can buy it online in x number of days, or we just so happen to have a few copies at the front…”

Sometimes I hem and haw when making decisions on whether or not to buy new music… sometimes its dead on easy and I will in fact end up buying multiple versions of the same record (I don’t know, are 4 copies of U2’s latest – Songs of Experience – enough???) but sometimes I wonder – especially if the artist is relatively new to me – if I need this cd, will I listen to it, will I enjoy it, can I afford it? And so on…  so I hemmed and hawed through Matthew Good and Our Lady Peace.

It’s what I do… especially now with the cd vs digital argument going on in my head… A cd in this particular instance is instant gratification, a memento of the evening.  Or do I wait for the digital?  My laptop doesn’t have a cd burner so I won’t be able to get it to iTunes if I buy the cd.  Plus its another cd, and I have minimalist tendencies and limited amounts of shelf space… Think Think Think…  What to do…

But then when I do make decisions they are usually final and instant in that second (after minutes, hours, days of hemming and hawing, researching and debating)…  So the show ends and we are leaving the building, walking by the merch stand and I stop.  Yep gotta buy this cd. Here and now. Right now.  No seconds left to flutter.

I looooved them, like loved loved loved them, on stage and if I don’t get the cd now there is a good chance I will forget to look for the digital release later (I’ve already forgotten the date) and miss out (because that’s also what I do… I forget things…).

So I go up to their table of cds and the band are there selling them.  I buy one and gingerly ask if they will sign the cd for me.  They do as I gush how much I loved their set.

The next day I put that baby in my dvd player and holy crap this EP is sooooo freaking awwwwwweeeeeessssssooooommmmmmeeeeee! Press repeat.

You know how it is, sometimes the recorded music doesn’t have that ooomphf that the live shows have, but this?  This is just so freaking good! This is the kind of music where I just adore everything about it.  I love the vocals, love the lyrics, love the way the instruments come in at certain points – arrangements and production I guess but that sounds so formal – what I mean is I can’t imagine any other way for that drum bit to enter than right at this point, right here.  And then the touch of spacey sounding thing just when all you want is a spacey sounding thing but you don’t know that you wanted that spacey sounding thing in this song until it happens and you are like oh hell yes! That’s exactly what I wanted in this song! But sure, I love the arrangements and production too.  It really is, truly, brilliant.

I am infatuated with this EP.  It grips me, soothes me, sways me.  I played nothing but it for days on end after the show… like seriously – I didn’t even watch tv at all those first days after buying it; it was just me, this EP, and some books… for days.

And this is saying a lot… like so much… There’s a still relatively new U2 cd out and a new U2 tour coming up soon and normally I like to envelope myself in all things U2 when these things happen so that I can sing every single word at the top of my lungs at their shows…

But this Ellevator band… they broke that U2 obsessive spell and put me under their own…

Just listen to Hounds above… simple to begin, that guitar and vocal.  but then the chorus, I love the growth of the repetition, one word, a phrase, the whole sentence:

Calling
Calling for
Calling for somebody to heal me.

Simple. Powerful. Effective. Gorgeous. And those whoah ohs… I cannot get enough… What is this magic?

Yep, this Ellevator band from Hamilton, Ontario… One minute you are walking to your seat for some awesome Matthew Good/OLP and the next you find a new favorite band…

Just go buy the EP (now on iTunes).