Sunday, January 22, 2006

(AUDIO!!) The New Deal - March 13th, 2005

Backstage at Langerado, Jamie Shields relaxes as Darren Shearer cops a quick feel of Dan Kurtz's boobs. March 13, 2005.

Last year's Langerado Music Festival concluded with a sweaty, smoky, dirty dance party in Fort Lauderdale's Culture Room when Perpetual Groove and the New Deal played a late night show on Sunday, March 13. For reasons I can't seem to remember at this time, I missed most of pGroove's set (which incidentally, I've never been able to find a complete copy of). But as soon as the New Deal came on and kicked off with a little bit of Rick James, I almost forgot that there even was an opening band.

The venue was packed that night, and we set up camp at the high bar so we looked over the stage throughout the night. It was a typical "live.progressive.breakbeat.house" party from the Canadian trio: sharply building peaks that would hit hard and often, oftentimes with a relentless fury that left the dance floor gasping for breath. I knew I was beat by the end of the night, and from what I gathered looking around me, the rest of the room felt the same. I mean, it was the end of a loooooong weekend.

The New Deal's entire set from that night is available here from one of the my favorite web sites in the whole wide world, the Internet Archive.

If you only want a taste, check out this massive encore, featuring a sweet little German cover song about the end of the world!

Birds in the Ocean 2 >
J >
99 Luft Balloons >
J

Rumor has it that Dan Kurtz, the band's bassist, is moving to England with his lovely wife, so there may not be too many tND shows in the future. Their keyboardist Jamie Shields recently had a baby, so I guess they are moving a little bit more towards the tranquility of domestic bliss after a couple years on the rock star track.

I've always wanted nothing but the best for this band, because when I first saw them in Montreal, it may have been their first tour of shows outside of their home base of Toronto. They played Le Swimming (R.I.P.), a pool hall slash concert venue with a four foot square stage that was the inevitable stop when any "jammy" band would come through town.

I would stand on a slightly elevated stair over Jamie's keyboards every time they would play that room, watching him get crazy with his array of synths. I watched that band grow into larger and larger rooms, first in Canada, then in New York and around the country. They had some serious momentum for a while, and then kinda petered out and played gigs few and far between.

The three guys in the band are super-talented musicians, so I hope they get it together and write some new tunes.

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