By Eric Mahollitz

While not the most Halloween-y thing going on, last night Café Montmartre hosted Portland buzz band The Shaky Hands and Polaris Prize-nominees, The Acorn. The venue provided somewhat of a safe haven from the drunken revelries outside. By the end of the night, the candlelit space only reached half capacity, but neither band nor the audience let that stand in the way of a good time.

The Shaky Hands put on an impressive performance at the High Noon Saloon their previous time through town and last night filled the stage with bassist Mayhaw Hoons dressed as a haggard dirt-poor Batman, Jeff Lehman (guitar) as Ninja, and Nick and Nathan Delffs as themselves, having shed their costumes due to heat. Things did heat up fairly quickly as the band turned up the volume and the feedback, performing less from their most recent album, Lunglight, than anticipated. As they bounced around their still young and growing catalog, their sound roamed between loosely controlled grunge and blissed out surf pop. Highlighting the set were Lunglight standouts like We Are Young and A New Parade, but halfway through the set the shakers, the reverb, and the bass playing of Hoons blended together to create a memorable experience. It won’t go down as one of their greater shows, but what it lacked in greatness it more than made up for with intensity and well executed panache.

Shaky Hands Setlist:

Let It Die
Loosen Up
We Are Young
Love Curse
Neighbors
Slip Away
Our Burning House
I’m Alive
A New Parade
Never Fine

Ottawa’s The Acorn took the stage before a largely standing and thoroughly prepped crowd, opening their set with the popular Flood, pt. 1, reveling in its upbeat, jangly goodness and the crowd’s animated response. From there the band immediately diverted from the recently acclaimed Glory Hope Mountain, showcasing their recent split 12” with a track that highlighted Rolf Klausener’s penchant for odd yet fully functional transitions. They then transitioned to playing a few tracks from their 2007 EP, Tin Fist. Through it all, the band’s rich textures and alternately upbeat rhythms allow Klausener and Co. to escape sounding overly sullen as their material’s subject matter might warrant. But it was when they returned to the Glory Hope Mountain material that things really got interesting. During the percussive, country/western-tinged Glory, guitarist Howie Tsui tumbled off the stage, thankfully returning minutes later, though noticeably impaired. With some obviously shaky guitar playing, Howie and the rest of the group muscled through what amounted to a shortened, yet very respectable and provocative set.

The Acorn Setlist:

Flood, pt. 1
Burrows
Brokered Heart
Dents
Glory
Even While You’re Sleeping
Crooked Legs

Myspace: The Acorn
Myspace: The Shaky Hands
MP3: The Acorn – “Crooked Legs”
MP3: The Acorn – “The Flood Pt. 1″

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