The grey elephant stands outside again. Winter showed up for 3 days and for a while I could even have snow fights with my dog until this curious 12 degree weather appeared and stole it all away. Jasmin and I went to see Rogue Wave last night at the Horseshoe and while they were entertaining, the opening band was a lot of fun and deserves to be my 2nd review.

This review really began in my mind somewhere into the beginning of their song People…

“I’m estranged by the motives of megaphones.
And the plastic bags stuck in trees.
Rolling up every street
Chaotic Sunday shopping sprees.”

I totally dig on those plastic bags stuck in trees. There’s one right behind my apartment and every day I walk my dog I stare at it and consider climbing high enough to pull it down. It’s been stuck there for 3 years now, it’s completely ridiculous.

The Ghost is Dancing live is a sight to see; it’s a raucus, joyous Indie Carnival. I was shocked to read on their homepage that they’ve only been playing together live since August. I was quite impressed that they were able so hold such a tangle of instruments, vocal parts, and interludes together on stage. While I thoroughly enjoyed the show for their energy and creativity, I longed to bring their CD home in the hopes of making sense of the pandemonium I had witnessed on stage.

I must say, I was slightly disappointed but not altogether surprised that the energy and emotion they present on stage was hard to fit into their recording. The production seemed to be lacking, but certainly the music feels better formulated and coherant, ripped to mp3 and queued on my ipod.

The Ghost is Dancing shares a place with other Canadian acts such as The Arcade Fire, Of Montreal, and Wolf Parade in their sound, and while I don’t mean to classify their obvious creativity, they follow in the trend of large orchestral acts like Broken Social Scene. I counted 7 members at the live show including 2 lead guitarists, a bassist, a keyboard/percussionist, a drummer, an accordian player and a saxophonist. Their music contains the high energy, fast and pounding bass drum, slow lamenting accordian and wide eyed lyrics of a team of minstrels playing for their very lives at a satanic bar mitzvah. Each of their songs, while unique, follow down the same garden path into the dark woods at night where the tempo drives us into a frenzy before finding themselves on the trail back home at last.

As a reader, you’ll be happy to know that you can listen to The Ghost is Dancing for free by visiting their MySpace. I suggest you check them out and say hi. Also don’t forget to go see them live, you might even be lucky enough to score a sweet balloon hat.