Last night I saw the extraordinary Unknown Mortal Orchestra at the legendary Vogue Theatre in Vancouver. A band that I fell in love with after seeing their revolutionary Tiny Desk Concert in late 2023 a set of music so crafted and beautifully performed it made me attracted to the bands catalog only to find that their are so many great albums and songs within. I had high expectations going into the show anticipating that it would be full of intention and a carefully crafted setlist and it was indeed all of that and more.

Opening for UMO was the Victoria based band Pastel Blank. A art rock sextet providing the audience with pure post punk slinkyness Reminiscent of bands like Talking Heads and Tops. The band was a perfect opener for UMO getting the crowd moving to their complex grooves from a tight rhythm section including a percussionist, Drummer and Bassist.

After a quick changeover, the house music stopped, the dark back lit stage lighting and smoke appeared and the sounds of a gorgeous electric piano filled the room. For close to three minutes keyboardist Christian Li gently played beautiful chords that transitioned into ominous and textural keyboard passages that kept the audience in suspense. As the band walked on the playing continued until they swiftly transitioned into the bands classic Beatles Esque tune From The Sun. The deceivingly cheery instrumental floats under the bands crushing opening lyrics “Isolation can put a gun in your hand, if you need to you can get away from the sun” After the stunning performance of this track they went into the following track off their album II “Swim And Sleep ( like a shark)” as well as “The Opposite of Afternoon”.

After the first three tunes Frontman Ruban Neilson addressed the crowd then charmingly said “thanks for letting us play the old ones” then launched into four seamless tunes “Thought Balloon,” “Little Blu house,” “Necessary Evil,” “Monki” and than back into necessary evil. Similar to the Tiny Desk Concert this medley of their songs is unbelievably impressive and Moments like that made the set feel so exciting and special and made the jump from their old catalog to their new stuff way more natural and seamless then just counting in all the songs separately.

Following the medley they played “Necessary Evil,” “Nadja,” and “So Good at Being In Trouble” into a long form jam that evolved into noisy abstractions played by Ruban. After this crazy jam they seamlessly launched into “Waves Of Confidence” which was such a beautiful and haunting performance such an interesting song. The following track was “Layla” off their newest album which had such a nice chill vibe with some of Rubans craziest guitar playing of the night.

After the song the band left the stage leaving keyboardist Christian Li playing solo Keyboard passages similar to the start of the show but this time with more of a sinister and dissonant approach which added a very experimental and odd element to the show which I think balanced it out with the tone of most of the songs. The dissonant keyboard passages quickly transitioned into the opening of multi love as the band walked back on stage. A very classy and tasteful version of the crowd pleaser continued ending in Ruban doing very droning renditions of the melody on guitar fading it into a long drone and the band left the stage again. As the drone continued fans went crazy screaming for an encore as the drone continued the band came back on and played “Meshuggah,” “That Life,” “Hunnybee” and “Can’t keep checking my phone”. A Stellar Ending to an absolutely flawless performance and a great night of music.

Words by Ben Lock