Lord Huron transforms Calgary’s Southern Jubilee Auditorium into a mystical musical desert

Spencer Yu, Staff Writer

As big of a fan of music as I am, I have never been to a concert before. Typically, it’s due to the fact that a lot of the time, the artists I want to see don’t come to Calgary. In addition, a great deal of the artists I do want to see are charging more money than I am willing to pay. However, the stars finally aligned for me last year when I found out that my favourite band Lord Huron was coming to Calgary.

I kind of already knew going into it that they were going to perform admirably live due to the fact that I have heard their live recordings before. However, live recordings are just that — recordings. And I thought that somehow the live performance couldn’t stack up to the quality of the music I have heard in the recordings.

They sounded fantastic, however, it was more than that. Listening to the music is one thing but seeing your favourite band perform live in front of you is a whole other thing.

I really enjoyed how they embraced the theme of their last album Long Lost with the set pieces that were on stage, as well as using other elements such as costume and lighting to call back to their previous albums.

For example, in their album Vide Noir, there is a lot of reference to “the emerald in the sky” so for some of the songs they played from that album the lighting would change to reflect that. Also in their album Strange Trails, there is the character of The World Ender featured in their music videos, so when the song “The World Ender” came around, the lead singer Ben Schneider donned the mask of said character.

The sound quality was something to be noted. Obviously, being in a live environment you are not going to have that crisp and perfect listening experience that you would have listening to a recording. I feel that given the particular position we were in, the sound echoed a little bit more. It was definitely loud but it wasn’t to the point that it was unpleasant for me to listen to.

However, a friend that I went to the concert with mentioned to me that he was unable to distinguish some of the lyrics from the overall noise of the concert. This isn’t an issue for me as I knew every single song in the set that they played, however if you are going to see a band that you are not super familiar with it might be worth listening to the concert set beforehand so that you can familiarize yourself with what is being played.

I was able to get five tickets on the third row of the first balcony for about $75 each.That being said, I purchased the tickets when their tour was first announced way back in October 2021.

My first concert experience overall then was I would say fairly positive. Seeing your favourite band play live is more than just seeing the people behind the music performing their craft but it’s also seeing other people that enjoy the same music that you do and experiencing a spectacle. I would happily see them again live and probably venture out and attend concerts that I would not have otherwise.