NAP EYES and CALVIN LOVE at Double Double Land, Wednesday, July 13. Rating: NNNN
On the hottest day of the hottest-hell-summer the city has known, it felt necessary to summon a bit of extra courage to head upstairs into Double Double Land, each step intensifying the sense of walking into a dense tropical environment.
But it’s also the Summer Of Nap Eyes, a Halifax indie rock band who are figuratively on fire, populating the summer playlists of everyone from the Polaris Prize jury to the Fleet Foxes guy, bringing respite with their unflappable chill, bending minds the way a Toronto heatwave bends streetcar tracks.
First, Calvin Love’s lively opening set helped shake off the lethargy of the day’s unforgiving weather. It was a careening performance that seemed pretty athletic given the circumstances. “I’m feeling swampy,” Love remarked to the audience, while large blower fans and piped in A/C started to make the room bearable, even a little danceable.
Nap Eyes came on a little after midnight with a victory-lap aura, having played an incredible show at the Garrison in April while on a sprawling tour of North America and Europe that still hasn’t quite wound down to a close.
The set was heavy on selections from recent album Thought Rock Fish Scale, songs they’ve played and thought about so much now that every chord rings with feeling and every slant-rhyme is saturated with meaningfulness. Some new tunes revealed an expanded sonic palette and forthright confidence that were every bit as thrilling as the masterful refinement of the older material.
Just as it started to feel real late for a Wednesday, the band stretched out into an infinitely stronger, road-tested version of 2014’s No Fear Of Hellfire. As if on cue, a massive thunderstorm erupted, the cold, wet air finding its way upstairs, the lightning illuminating the room like camera flashes, and the hottest day anyone can remember finally coming to an end in the form of blessed reprieve.
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