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By JJ Brewis Photos by Sprout

Fridays at the Biltmore will never be quite the same, not after Yacht's debut Vancouver appearance as an expanded outfit. The former twosome now full band showed up in full form to a packed crowd.

Openers Bobby Birdman from Los Angeles gave the crowd their all, like a somehow fine tuned chaotic, pieced together as a large ensemble. Hectic video art played behind the group while frontman Robert Von Kieswetter sweated it out, pepping himself up on Clap Your Hands Say Yeah inspired vocals, arranged over a cacophony of drum loops, snyth work, and mixed samples. Some tracks featured heavily inspired themes, like a track near the end of the set which sounded like a number written for a high school marching band, mixed with wildly slapped tin cans and vocals attempting to soar above all of this, somehow. All in all it was a well dispersed set, with some catchy numbers interspersed, however, with some really terrible tracks. Patchy wouldn't be fair, but pristine might be too kind. I did hear someone near me, halfway through the set, exclaim "This song is bad. 'Get another drink' bad," before heading to the back of the club. Ouch, but fair enough.

After what felt like too long of a wait, Portland favourites YACHT hit the stage, which was unveiled by a massive black curtain. Similar to Birdman's set, the stage was equipped with massive video visuals, a pulsating and abrasive addition to an already spastic stage show fronted by founding members Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans. Now backed by a new drummer and second guitarist, YACHT has expanded their territory, yet their set sounds surprisingly exact to that of their recorded material. Well, that isn't so bad considering it's catchy and quirky, and moving in a direction that seems off the path of any other present indie act. Bechtolt and Evans give off an insane stage presence that is so in your face and so intense, you're almost happy to be halfway off to the side, rather than the front row position you initially wished for. "Thank you Vancouver for having us inside you right now!" proclaimed Evans.

Their set kicked off the same way their newest album, 2009's See Mystery Lights begins, the lead off track "It's Boring/You Can Live Anywhere You Want." The track, along with many that followed it, proved YACHT as a kooky, chaotic meld of so many indistinctive styles that I lost count. Perky, upbeat lyrics melded with an overabundance of instrumental elements is a lot to work with, but for the most part, the group pulled it off in style, both metaphorically, and physically. It was, after all, hard to look away from Bechtolt's white-on-white-on-white fashioned get-up, only offset by his messy brown locks. The set continued with "I'm In Love With A Ripper," a thinly veiled homage to the amour of an exotic dancer. The crowd ate these tracks up, shredding the Biltmore dance floor in a manner I'd never seen before.

Although, in typical YACHT fashion, the oddball antics have to put a halt just for the show's sake, which was expressed mid-set for a five minute "Meditation Breakdown" in which the vocalists asked the audience members to repeat after them in ridiculous vague concepts such as "The world may end in my lifetime, but my energy will continue." The frat boys and their drunken sorority girlfriends were not bemused by these off-beat antics, shouting slurs at the band, such as "More dance music! Less New Age bulls---!" This only added to my personal amusement, and it occurred to me that YACHT probably feed off this type of mixed energy for sick kicks, knowing they can well get away with whatever they please so long as they bring the dance numbers pre-and-post breakdown. And did they ever.

The set ended with Summer City, a hilarious ode to the warmer season, only lampooned in irony by the current weather this city is experiencing while hosting the (cough) Winter Olympic Games. But that kind of tongue-in-cheek motion is what YACHT is all about.

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