Concert Review: Dizzy @ Rock and Roll Hotel (12/8/17)

Get to know Dizzy, the best dream pop band from Oshawa!

Or so it may seem.

Three brothers – Alex, Charlie and Mackenzie Spencer – and their friend Katie Munshaw from outside Toronto, in the suburb of Oshawa, Ontario (pop. 162,005), banded together to form Dizzy, to write and craft pop songs about the loneliness of coming of age in the ‘burbs and alleviating the boredom of life in close confines with so many people.

Now they’ve left Oshawa long enough to perform their soaring dream pop melodies, opening for SHAED and Foreign Air on a six city tour of the US, with DC coming in as the last stop and certainly crowning achievement.

With some level of cheekiness, they covered Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” towards the end of the too short set (merely six songs!), cementing this theme of suburbia they expound upon in their lyrics and moods.

But the night kicked off with their radiant first single, “Stars and Moons” – produced by Damian Taylor (also works with Arcade Fire), where Katie (lead vocals) danced and gesticulated with her hands as much as her voice, to serenade the ever-increasing crowd with the insecurities of falling in love and losing it, ‘I am starting to see stars and moons, this is how it ends, a courageous boom.’ The feeling of soaring above it all and not caring about the world’s ills began to creep in… or maybe I just started dancing an iota.

Their second song “In Time”, was also brilliant, then they moved into “Joshua” about a boy who broke Katie’s heart.

They ended their brief stint with the increasingly rapt DC crowd, now brimming towards capacity, with the amazing new single “Swim”. As much as I like “Stars and Moons”, I have this song on repeat (I keep refreshing the Vimeo video…).

Beyond their two singles, and the cover of “The Suburbs”, they don’t have much music** available for us to discover and enjoy yet. However, the brother on drums (Charlie Spencer) informed a curious fan as they were packing up the gear, that they ‘had a whole record done, and it will come out next year (2018)’. As 2017 ends on a high note, we now have more good music to look forward to in the new year.

Setlist
Stars and Moons
In Time
Joshua
Pretty Thing
The Suburbs (Arcade Fire cover)
Swim

** See what I did there, Canadians?