Vancouver Television

The show was very undersold, however, those who in attendance were garage rockers. It was a future glimpse of what us Strokes fans will look like in the next 20 years.
I had the privilege of seeing Television last year at the Primavera Music Festival in Spain. It was one of the few curveball bookings of the festival. Most in attendance were high profile US journalists and only a few who woke up early enough in the Spanish heat check out one of influential bands of the garage scene.
As much as I like Television and appreciate the music itself for some reason doesn’t translate beyond 200 people. This isn’t a bad thing, it is common for many bands of that genre.
Live Nation took an economical dare on this booking. They guys had no touring manager (talked some sources before the show on this), no gear (everything was rented), no car (they just walked to and from the venue). They travelled with the bare bones essentials. In other words it didn’t matter how many tickets they sold as there were no high costs associated with the show. The show raised moderate interest to major promotors outside festivals to take a chance on smaller bookings.
They did do a decent sound check early in the afternoon, therefore, not surprised that they executed the songs well on rented instruments. The sound mix, in spite of them not having their own house mixer, was decent. Then again most bands sound good at the Commodore.
The band was very toe gazer and there wasn’t much to see beyond the first 20 minutes, however, there was still something captivating.
P. S. Meeting the guys before and after the show was a cool treat.