Owl City charms Vancouver at Centre for Performing Arts

By Chris Yee
[contributor]

Owl City is a mixed bag, critically speaking. Some have called his music overly cutesy, even blatantly derivative of mid-aughties indietronic project The Postal Service. At the same time, though, there are some things about Owl City (Adam Young, of Owatonna, Minnesota; insomniac, former warehouse worker, avowed Postal Service fan, and apparent Ben Gibbard impressionist) that this reviewer finds fascinating, even under the pretence of avoiding his oeuvre (mostly).

Owl City’s attempts to evoke a sense of child-like innocence and wonder in many of his songs seem at first glance to flirt with a disagreeable, affected mawkishness – but somehow it feels rather ill-spirited to fault him for his MySpace-driven ascent from insomniac bedroom musician to world-touring major-label star, even as this particular route to commercial success has by now become cliché, even passé.

But Owl City seems unconcerned with what is cliché and passé, and to someone who doesn’t usually make a point of partaking in such fare, this makes for an interesting diversion at least and a refreshing one at most (OK, scratch that last one.)

Nonetheless, I took the opportunity of free press tickets to go on a lark; to go check out Owl City’s appearance at the Centre for Performing Arts in Vancouver on July 16, part of a world tour promoting his latest album, All Things Bright and Beautiful. Among the crowd thronging the marble-gilt concourse of the Centre, which mostly consisted of teens, tweens, their chaperones, and a smattering of young families, I felt out of place – but hey, itís an adventure, I told myself.

Instrumental rock band Unwed Sailor, formed in 1998, opened the night. Unwed Sailor’s riffs evoke a pleasing sort of tourism commercial epicness. Unfortunately, they came across as too inoffensive and interchangeable to succeed beyond making stock background music. The relatively lukewarm response of the crowd seemed to confirm my suspicions.

Next up was chart-topping balladeer Mat Kearney, of “Grey’s Anatomy” soundtrack fame (naturally, he played “All I Need” during his set, along with his various other hits and some new songs off his forthcoming album Young Love). The audience was ecstatic, as ecstatic as generations of audiences have been to generations of pop stars, even as he let slip a slightly untimely and unseemly dig involving the Boston Bruins and Vancouver in his otherwise charming stage banter. Not that he was limited to working the stage – he worked the audience, too, with high-fives and hugs.

Finally, headliner Owl City attempted to top this performance with projections, dramatic lighting, dramatic teddy bear hugging, and a full band, which drowned out his voice on a few songs.

Owl City’s set ranged from older, bouncier material about daydreams, “fireflies” (an early single of his), the Pacific Northwest (as evidenced by another early single, “Hello Seattle”, among other songs) and innocent longing, to newer songs which almost (but not quite) belie the title of All Things Bright and Beautiful: songs like “Hospital Flowers” (a perspective-changing, near-death car crash), “Deer in the Headlights” (more than just being about unrequited love, the lyrics mention being pepper sprayed in response to some rather chaste advances), and “Galaxies” (sampling Ronald Reagan’s post-Challenger disaster State of the Union address in its intro).

Ultimately, what carried Owl City’s set was the ample participation from his devoted, owl costume-clad fans; a good part of the audience was standing up toward the middle of it.

As for myself, I found myself a little charmed by the time Owl City took a bow after the set, backup band and all – but not by much. I left, telling myself that this’ll be nothing more than a guilty pleasure for me.

No, really. I did. I really did.