Mother Mother @ Commodore Ballroom – March 25th 2017

Mother Mother is playing a 5-show run at the Commodore Ballroom, with just about all the shows completely sold out. An awesome feat for a local band, showing just how much they have taken over. These guys have some pretty dark lyrical content at times, but nonetheless put forth a really uppity good-time vibe. On stage is no different – like, while you can feel the heaviness between brother and sister Ryan and Molly Guldemond during their intervention-esque “Baby Boy,” there is still a big dance party happening in the room and tons of sizzling movement on stage as well. The Guldemonds and keyboardist Jasmin Parkin are the most obvious at this, with Ryan bolting around the stage, hopping up and down or taunting the crowd at the stage edge (or even in the pit at times), wearing a fierce expression. The girls are usually tethered to their respective keyboards framing him, but on those occasions they are able to, they take the opportunity to pop out from behind them and dance, clap, shimmy around to their bandmates, and keep the vibe up. They don’t own the banter side of things, but they really don’t need to – they have the room captivated. People were passing out before the show even began up front, and I was just about knocked out of the park a few times by folks dancing with reckless abandon, sweeping their pints of beer off the bar and actually not caring about it. During one of the brief breaks between fiery tracks, Ryan did address the ‘Spicy heat’ in the room, and said that he hoped we were all doing good, “but not too good. Our suffering adds context to the good times…” Words on a theme. A sombre party. A bright darkness. An energetic contemplation. These guys are a series of contrasts. It’s pretty cool.