Adam Granduciel – My (life in) music lists

Live music galleries: The War on Drugs [2023]

(I got the idea for this series while sifting through the ‘piles’ of digital photos on my laptop. It occurred to me to share some of these great pics from some of my favourite concert sets from time to time. Until I get around to the next one, I invite you to peruse my ever-growing list of concerts page.)

The War on Drugs live at Ottawa Bluesfest 2023

Artist: The War on Drugs
When: July 13th, 2023
Where: RBC stage, Ottawa Bluesfest, Lebreton Flats Park, Ottawa
Context: Immediately after the end of Bluesfest back in July, I posted pics from the Fleet Foxes set, calling it my favourite of the fest. But I caught a lot of great performances at this year’s festival, another big favourite being a mid-evening Thursday night spot by The War on Drugs. I had already seen the big-sounding rock band led by Adam Granduciel nine years before, but I had remembered how great they were live and couldn’t pass up seeing them again. Of the ten songs they performed, half were from their latest record, “I don’t live here anymore”, and though this wasn’t my favourite of the band’s works, those five songs infused with the WoD live energy became a different animal altogether. They were onstage for just over an hour and fifteen minutes and barely spoke to the crowd and in fact, they barely paused between songs. They just kept up the rock and the crowd ate it up. This blogger included.
Point of reference song: “I don’t live here anymore”

Adam Granduciel and Jon Natchez

Anthony LaMarca and Eliza Hardy Jones

David Hartley and Charlie Hall

Robbie Bennett on the keys

Frontman Adam crooning away

Best tunes of 2011: #28 The War on Drugs “Baby missiles”

<< #29 | #27 >>

In the summer of 2011, I started up my first blog, Music Insanity, which lasted around five years before I decided to stick a fork in it. In its early days, it was pretty scattered and eclectic, its only constant being the music I loved. One of the ideas I had started out with but never finished was to create playlists, mixed tapes of a sort, of all the different alternative sub-genres. It was while putting together the second half of a two part playlist on shoegaze music, a kind of intro to the second wave revivalists, that I came across The War on Drugs.

Some music writer had termed them “Boss gaze” in reference to their second album, “Slave ambient”, and in exploring further, I saw this expression bandied about across the blogosphere. I found the term so humorous, I wrote a post with the term as its title and provided the video below to my, at the time, very modest readership for their consideration. Personally, as silly as the term sounds, I found it apt to describe the sound of “Baby missiles”. The song sounds a heck of a lot like “Born in the USA” era Springsteen, filtered through an early 90s Britain reverb pedal, Ride or Swervedriver, take your pick. Frontman and driving force Adam Granduciel was still finding his voice on this early album but you can almost picture him wearing a bandanna and jean jacket vest, much like a couple other bands (I’m thinking Killers and Airborne Toxic Event) were wont to do about this time. The beat is uptempo, built for handclaps, and augmented with a heavy wash of organs and harmonicas and vocal “whooo”s.

Six years and two albums later, this group has become relatively well-known, especially on the festival circuit, and has gone on to win a grammy for Best Rock Album. Nowadays, though, there’s another dubious term for them: “Dad rock”. Whichever you prefer, I think both fit.