Wolf Parade’s Apologies to the Queen Mary was my favorite album of last year, a title that was cinched after seeing the band live last year at Chicago’s best small venue, Schubas. It was at this show that I realized who the heart of the band was: Spencer Krug, the phenomenal voice of “I’ll Believe in Anything,” one of the best songs I’ve heard in a long time. For the entirety of that show, I was unable to take my eyes off his passionate, intense singing and keyboard playing. When I found out he had another project, Sunset Rubdown, I couldn’t wait to hear it, and the recently released Shut Up I Am Dreaming has not disappointed in the least. Let’s just say that I haven’t been this excited about a musician since I discovered the Dismemberment Plan in college. When I heard Sunset Rubdown was touring with another band Spencer’s been associated with, the wonderfully bizarre Frog Eyes, I couldn’t wait to see that intensity on stage once again.

Even with those high expectations in tow, the show proved to be the best I’ve seen all year. The venue was full, but surprisingly not sold out, for Sunset Rubdown's set. After a prolonged sound check, the show kicked off when Spencer got behind his keyboard and said, "This song is a Wolf Parade song, but before that it was a Sunset Rubdown song" and proceeded to play a stripped-down, version of "I'll Believe in Anything," just him and the keyboards, while I proceeded to drop my jaw in disbelief and amazement and possibly wet myself. I still can't believe he started out the show with the original version of Wolf Parade's best and biggest song, and I couldn’t be happier that he did. The song quickly bled into "Snakes Got a Leg" as the rest of the band joined in (made up of Jordan Robson-Cramer and Michael Doerksen, who switched on and off between guitar and drums, and Pony Up!’s Camilla Wynn Ingr, who added additional sound effects, bells and backing vocals), and the next 45 minutes of music were pretty unreal. Spencer put on much of the same humble, passionate, super-intense performance behind his keyboards that I loved when I saw Wolf Parade, eventually picking up this ratty looking mini-accordion held together by duct tape for the stunning epic, "The Men Are Called Horsemen There." which made for a great visual spectacle. They also played a brand new song (something about “chaos”) that was possibly, dare I say it, better than anything I've heard of theirs yet. There’s just something about Krug’s unique and powerful voice that makes it hard for me to concentrate on anything else- it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before. He could put the phone book to song and I’d pay to hear him sing it.

After Sunset Rubdown's set, the ongoing trend of recent buzz bands overshadowing the headliners they tour with (see: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and the National) continued as the crowd shrank substantially, which is really too bad for those people who left, especially since the two bands’ sounds complement each other so well. With Spencer joining his former band on the keyboards, Frog Eyes put on an at-times hilarious and equally intense performance somewhat fueled by singer Casey Mercer's self-deprecating angst that spilled forth between each song. The first thing you notice about Mercer when he steps on stage is how little he looks like an indie band frontman. He sort of looks like Philip Seymour Hoffman- more specifically, the creepy, Lara Flynn Boyle-stalking Hoffman of Todd Solondz's Happiness, because Casey is creepy, let me tell you. When he's yelping and howling during his bizarre and exciting songs, his bright red face scrunches up and his whole body seems to tremble and shudder as he's pounding away at his guitar and waving his finger in the air like a madman. In between songs he'd either regale us with some ridiculous tale that made no sense or endlessly mock himself ("You're old and no one wants to see you play!"), Spencer ("Why don't we do things like Wolf Parade!"), or an audience member (“I just drank tequila for the first time!” after she yelled out “Wolf Parade!”), and he'd do it in this really high-pitched, evil-sounding whisper. Meanwhile, his band seemed to sort of look around nervously in the background as if they weren't used to seeing this odd behavior on a daily basis. Beyond all the theatrics, however, Frog Eyes sounded really great, and the lengthy, brand new song they ended with was weird and ambitious and fantastic, giving me high expectations for their next album. To my delight they eschewed the encore, instead opting to join hands and take a dramatic bow before leaving the stage.