There’s a darkness swirling inside the mind of Toronto native Taylor Kirk. If you happened to be at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on Saturday night, you witnessed it first hand via an eerie set from his musical outlet Timber Timbre.
While some bands opt for a light show to accompany to their music, Timber Timbre relied solely on ominous red lighting and a black and white montage of still photos by a French filmmaker. In turn, the ambience and actual performance felt more like a live scoring of a bizarre art house horror flick than a traditional concert.
The band opened their set with “Bad Ritual,” and despite some noticeable guitar issues, Kirk’s distinct baritone vocals managed to remain the focus of the broody blues tune. The song segued seamlessly into “Creep On Creepin’ On,” the title track from their 2011 release. It was well played, with similar mid-tempo pacing, quivering violin and heavily processed guitar trills. These sounds and nuances tend to appear in most of Timber Timbre’s songs, and the lack of musical variety clearly had an impact on some folks in the audience. Kirk broke his “no stage banter” rule by calling out a guy who had fallen asleep during the show. He even proceeded to point and sing directly to the individual in an attempt to either engage or embarrass him; it was pretty hard to tell which.
During the slow-burning “Magic Arrow” (which some folks may recognize from a particularly tense scene of Breaking Bad), the crowd attempted to clap along to the song. This prompted some confusion from Kirk, who quickly mentioned that they had just added a drummer to the mix only a few shows prior to Saturday night’s. The band proceeded to re-start the song, and this time the crowd took the hint. Music of this nature does not lend itself to clapping.
After only an hour of playing, the quartet left the stage and Kirk reemerged by his lonesome to play an unfocused rendition of “Demon Host” before closing the show with the organ-heavy “I Get Low.” Even though the performance on the whole was pretty solid, the set was short, and Kirk’s stage presence and banter came off as awkward and at times unappreciative.
As Timber Timbre (and that one sleeping attendee) would probably tell you, sometimes the hometown crowd can be the toughest to please.