Cold Waves somehow is 14 years old this. year, which is shocking how fast the years went by but here we are. While Riot Fest closed out the summer last weekend, Cold Waves always kicks off the fall and they always do it in style. This year was no different and they kicked off this year’s fest with a real heavy hitter in The Tear Garden! The sold out crowd at Bottom Lounge were very excited at the prospect of seeing this legendary act.
First up was Carrellee. This was a one woman act hailing from Madison, WI. She played really catchy synthpop that was kind of atmospheric and had really great, dreamy vocals. She’s a great singer and the songs were super enjoyable and downright soothing, yet you could still easily dance to them. The crowd really seemed to warm up to her rather quickly and it was a very enjoyable set.
If you are a long time fan of industrial music, especially if you really like Skinny Puppy and The Legendary Pink Dots, then it’s a very safe bet you’re familiar with The Tear Garden. For those not in the know, The Tear Garden was formed as a side project in 1986 by Cevin Key of Skinny Puppy and Edward Ka-Spel of The Legendary Pink dots. They put out an amazing EP, and then followed it up with an even more amazing album, Tired Eyes Slowly Burning. The duo, along with Dwayne Goettel would revisit the project off and on over the following years, but the one thing that was constant was the act never performed live, ever. They were simply a studio project done whenever the mood and opportunity struck. It really never seemed like a Tear Garden live performance was ever a possibility, but somehow that changed this year when the band announced a tour after Cold Waves revealed the band as headlining one of the nights of this year’s festival. This was one of the most exciting revelations in Cold Waves history!
When the band took the stage, they were greeting with a huge roar and applause, the entire crowd was super excited for this moment. The live band was a four piece with Cevin Key handling drums and a bit of electronics, and Edward handling more electronics and all the vocals. They had a guy near the back of the stage that played guitar or bass depending on the songs, and another handling keyboards and more electronics.
The band opened with “Going Up from the latest release, Astral Elevator. Whoever was doing sound that night needs to be commended as everything sounded great, especially the drums. While the band performed, they had a projector displaying psychedelic images on the wall behind them. They were a little hard to see because the wall was black, but it did illuminate the band members nicely and became more a part of the light show than anything. Edward’s voice sounded great as he walked barefoot around the stage while singing. Seeing Key play drums again was a real treat, he’s a great drummer but the last time anyone probably had a chance to witness him behind a drum kit was the first Ohgr tour in the early 2000’s, and if you didn’t see that then you’d have to rewind back to the 1990 and 1992 Skinny Puppy tours.
The band played some more recent tunes before they started dipping into the back catalog busting out some long time fan favorites. First they did “Deja Vu” and it really came across great in a live setting. A personal highlight for me was when they started playing “You And Me And Rainbows”, which gave me chills, but the one bummer, and my only complaint of the entire night, was that they only played the first two parts and ended the song right before the “Ogre part” (what I refer to as part three), and went immediately into “Empathy With The Devil”. “You And Me And Rainbows” is the greatest song in the history of music, so to only get part of this masterpiece was heartbreaking, but in a world where I’d never imagined this band would ever play live, the two parts of the song we got were phenomenal! I can see them not wanting to devote 18 minutes of their set to a single song, but it would’ve been worth it.
Every song they played sounded pretty amazing, and the way they translated these songs in a live band performance really exceeded most people’s expectations. There were some seemingly improv moments of samples and radio sounds that harkened back to the early like Skinny Puppy performances that really added to the magic. The real treat came when they played “The Centre Bullet” and the show closing, “Ophelia”, as both of them sounded stunning coming from that stage.
When all was said and done, The Tear Garden delivered a really amazing 80 minute set. This was one of those special performances that will stick with you the rest of your life, and what a way to kick off the Cold Waves Fest!
