No Luck Club steals CFUR’s show

By Kathleen De Vere

CFUR shows usually turn out to be a ‘who’s who’ microcosm of the UNBC crowd, where you have the perennial crowd favorites who show up, make the evening, and generally start the party when they arrive (the CFUR crew, certain well known student politicians)... and then you have the assorted scum and detritus, who generally show up early with some lame excuse that they’re reviewing the show (newspaper losers.) :

But sometimes people go for the music, and that was something that the No Luck Club show had plenty of, even though it faced some stiff competition from other exciting acts that night.

Even competing with the Rez Semj- Formal, and a gospel revival across the street, by the end of the night, CFUR sold* almost all the tickets to the show.

The evening opened with local Prince George hip hop group Versus, who did a nice job of warming up the crowd with a fairly generic, but good rapping type per- formance.

After they finished their set, we were treated to a very cool impromptu beatbox set by some audience members, which, I can say with utmost authority, was even better than ‘Havin’ a Roni’ by Vanilla Ice.

During all this, there was a slight prob- lem with getting appropriate volume out of the sound system, despite the heroic efforts of Eric the sound guy to affect an outcome

_ to the contrary.

The problem didn’t stem from anyone’s incompetence, but from the fact that the sound system was held together in parts with solder, yarn, and prayers to ancient and terrible acoustics gods.

This didn’t stop a great operation from DJ Weasel and Kain Lee, who came all the way from Edmonton to grace us with their presence. Weasel played a mix of drum

and bass ‘electronic music’ with the hip hop —

stylings of Kain Lee over top. Although the drum ‘n bass got people moving, the best part of the show was Kain Lee’s opening comments, which included such comedic gems as: “My names Kain Lee. Lee because that’s my middle name, and Kain from the bible because he killed his brother and so did I when I was 15.” (awkward silence from crowd) “Ha Ha, just kidding folks.” ;

Although the best was, “I’ve got some good news for you all, Let’s hear it for Weasel, who’s just gotten over a really bad 2 year meth addiction!” I fucking love terri- ble black humor,

Anyhow, the music that they played was also very decent, and there was a sizable contingent of people shaking their booty out on the dance floor.

After Weasel and Kain Lec had finished they fixed the sound, and No Luck Club was able to petform at top club shaking vol- ume.

The sound problems weren’t actually that bad in retrospect, since the volume was fine near the stage and quiet cnough in the back to allow for mingling, drinking and conversation. Overall, the technical end held up very well.

So finally, No Luck Club hit the stage.

No Luck Club, (for those of you who didn’t look at a single poster that littered the school for weeks before their arrival) are a Vancouver duo, with Matt Chan on the turntables and Trevor Chan on Mac laptop and midi keyboard. Most people were sur- prised by their fluid transitions and scratch- ing skills, but most of all by their blend of dance beats, scratching, found sound and jazz licks. Well, I was. The evening so far had been a very hip hop oriented affair, and I found the change to more straight up electronic music to be refreshing, like a cold

40 oz of OE.

almost the entire crowd squeezed onto the dance floor to Shake their asses in a manner that was

almost, but not quite, in time with the beat.

For one of the only shows they’ve ever played outside of their native Vancouver, No Luck Club got a very warm reception - almost the entire crowd squeezed onto the dance floor to shake their asses in a manner that was almost, but not quite, in time with the beat.

Poor dancing skills aside, everyone had a fantastic time while the dynamic duo worked their dance music magic, and one impressed concert goer confided it me, “I haven’t shaken my booty like this since well... ever!” Then scurried back to the dance floor to take in more of the show.

The Chan brothers played a nice selec- tion of cuts from their album Happiness (buy it now, they’re on Dan _ the Automator’s label) and some heavy energy tracks to keep the crowd going. A personal favourite was the way they ‘covered’ Body Movin’ by the Beastie Boys and Teenage Wasteland by the Who. Such crowd-pleas- ing favorites kept many people on their toes to see what the Chan brothers would do next. They played for over two hours, and by the time their set began to wind down the crowd was practically begging for an encore. Alas, they were almost unprepared for the reception they got in our fair town, as they couldn’t fulfill a request for their stellar album track Beatnik Communism, on account of they hadn’t prepared it, since they’ve never gotten a bonafide request for a song at one of their shows before.

Nevertheless, No Luck Club acquiesced to the crowds request, playing one last song before they announced that they’d' actually run out of stuff to play, since they’d never played for that long at a live show before.

Of course, many, many people rushed to the stage to buy CDs, get autographs, and congratulate the Chan Brothers on their incredible show, myself includéd.

The final verdict: if you weren’t there, you missed out. The crewd had a great time, and by the huge grin on their faces by the end of the night, so did No Luck Club.