Live Review: When Autumn Falls, Sully, Priority One, Furniture

It might have been April Fools’, but the bands hitting the corner stage at Four5Nine Bar were no joke. Furniture got things started with an appropriately high octane set replete with some great guitar work and an energy that extended out of the tiny space, setting the tone for the night.

Fast-paced three-piece Priority One kept things speedy with a set built on short, sharp numbers. Opening with a track about zombies appropriately named Zombie, they blasted through a number of tracks before reaching a slick cover of Billy Talent’s Fallen Leaves. A bit more consistency and work and they’ll do really well in larger venues.

Sully was a definite turn on the night, with the soft two-guitars-and-bass melodies floating out over the small crowd. Falling well outside the fast-paced punk theme carried by the rest of the bands, they instead carefully built reverb-laden indie numbers with a good sense of density and weight, without overextending themselves. Their intuitive sense of quiet and loud transitions favoured well in the echo chamber-ish venue.

Wrapping everything up were When Autumn Falls, who pretty much set the mood from the start with a pair of beautiful guitars. Luckily they had the skills to back up the value of their axes, with a range of tracks showing some pretty in-there skills in terms of chord progressions and teamwork. Again, a little more work is needed before they’re ready to hit it on a bigger stage, but the passion is definitely there. They managed to find their groove late in the set, and a transition between bassists halfway through definitely shook things up a bit. The band is obviously happy to be on stage, so hopefully they use that energy to do bigger and better things in the future.

While it wasn’t the biggest gig, it’s shows like Four5Nine’s usual Wednesday night slots that prove there’s still plenty of room for new bands to make their mark on the local scene. One crowd member’s cry of “Punk ‘aint dead!” might be a bit cliché, but if tonight’s bands had anything to prove, it’s that it isn’t.