Though Wavves had never played Halifax before, someone must have briefed Nathan Williams about the variable weather. The frontman walked on stage in an oversized jacket and "Pizza"-labeled ball cap before realizing the enthusiastic crowd at Olympic Hall was keeping the temperature a few degrees too warm for such an outfit. Smartly clad in layers, he switched to a hooded T-shirt and launched right into another piece of dishevelled power pop.
Wavves sound as if they come from an alternate reality in which Weezer didn't become a formalist exercise and Rivers Cuomo was a pothead. "Do people in Halifax do cool drugs?" asked Williams. "What do you think are cool drugs?" (The answers yelled out from the crowd: TNT and Cialis.) Whatever the source of the high, both the band and the crowd were high-energy from the get-go: countless crowd-surfers on the floor (many wearing…backpacks?) and dancers in the balcony keeping time by tapping on the barricade. Songs like "Idiot," "Beat Me Up" and a set-closing "Green Eyes" stayed raggedy on their edges, but held together as satisfying pop constructions.
Wavves sound as if they come from an alternate reality in which Weezer didn't become a formalist exercise and Rivers Cuomo was a pothead. "Do people in Halifax do cool drugs?" asked Williams. "What do you think are cool drugs?" (The answers yelled out from the crowd: TNT and Cialis.) Whatever the source of the high, both the band and the crowd were high-energy from the get-go: countless crowd-surfers on the floor (many wearing…backpacks?) and dancers in the balcony keeping time by tapping on the barricade. Songs like "Idiot," "Beat Me Up" and a set-closing "Green Eyes" stayed raggedy on their edges, but held together as satisfying pop constructions.