Concert Review: Tokyo Police Club @ The Howard Theatre (11/14/24)

Tokyo Police Club (Photo Credit: Ross Macdonald)

tes·sel·late (verb): decorate or cover (a surface) with a pattern of repeated shapes, especially polygons, that fit together closely without gaps or overlapping.

Tokyo Police Club (or TPC from now on) performed their last show in DC on November 14th at The Howard Theatre. Not the final show of their aptly named The Final Tour, but their last show ever here in DC (their final show is Nov. 29th in Canada). They are retiring after almost 20 years of parlaying their excellent music to the masses. For those lucky enough to be at The Howard Theatre, we witnessed a heartfelt farewell from a band that blazed gloriously onto the indie rock scene in 2005 and decided to exit in an equally epic blaze of glory.

TPC is an indie rock band from Ontario, Canada (just outside Toronto), and is comprised of Dave Monks (vocals, bass), Graham Wright (keyboards), Josh Hook (guitar), and Greg Alsop (drums). They formed in high school and officially changed their name to TPC in 2005 as seniors. Their origins go a little deeper, as Dave and Graham met in the 4th grade, to later start the high school band that became TPC. Their rise to fame was meteoric. As Dave shared between songs, they mailed cassette tape demos to a festival in Montreal, and someone loved their music enough to add them to the lineup. Within the first year of that performance, they were already on The Late Show with David Letterman. Dave added quite a bit cheekily, ‘Can you imagine the ego you would feel after all that?’ And when cheers and laughter echoed through the theatre, he added, ‘You’re nerds for TPC!’ And he was right.

This last show elicited a lot of mixed emotions. The opening act was the Born Ruffians, who Dave described as ‘Kindred spirits’ because they started around the same time and for similar reasons as TPC, and with whom they have collaborated musically and toured with multiple times. The Born Ruffians set was great (check them out, if you haven’t), but the first emotion I had during the opening set was surprise that there wasn’t nearly enough people there to send off TPC in a proper way. A very sparse crowd to start, but it slowly and steadily built up exponentially until it was easily the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen at The Howard Theatre (I’ve only been there nine times though). The second emotion that hit me, once the crowd was fully realized, was pleasant confirmation that a lot of people really love this band. And as half the crowd sang along to most of the songs, that emotion was reinforced.

TPC kicked off the evening with “Favorite Food” and “Favorite Colour”, both from their second album, 2010’s Champ. “Favorite Colour” is a distinctly fun song about love, where you never want to stop getting to know that someone, so you just keep asking all the questions. The syncopated forcefulness of the questions was especially electrifying. Then came two more songs from Champ, before they switched to four songs from their first album, 2008’s Elephant Shell. They liked these blocks of four consecutive songs from a single album, later performing another block from Champ and a fourth one from their debut EP, 2006’s A Lesson in Crime.

Graham then regaled us with a hearty confession of deceit, about their participation in the 2011 Red Bull Soundclash in DC. If you’re not familiar, two artists are chosen to perform three different rounds of music (like play a song from your opponent’s catalog) and after all the notes have faded, the audience decides the winner with boisterous cheers. TPC was matched against the DC artist Wale in two Soundclashs, one in Boston and one in DC. I was actually there for the DC edition set up on Pennsylvania Ave., so Graham’s revelations were even more amusing. They lost the clash in Boston, but he ‘claims’ they stole the win in DC by grabbing the microphone designated for Wale and using it on the crowd when it was their turn to cheer for TPC. Hilarious if true, but I’ll always walk away from that clash with the knowledge that TPC’s victory was flawless (no knowing winks needed).

The best block of four songs came when they returned to Champ and performed some of their best songs, “Hands Reversed”, “End of a Spark”, “Bambi”, and “Frankenstein”. “Bambi”, about alcoholism, and “Hands Reversed” are top five TPC songs for me. The theme of “Bambi” is not auspicious, but rather tragic, as it is about a mother making excuses to her son about why she comes home drunk. As doleful as the topic may be, the excuses are pretty rich and inventive, and the notes of the keyboard and guitars thrust at you forcefully and retreat (during the interludes), in a cycle that forms a positive habit of pleasure in your brain. “Hands Reversed” is a slow ballad that also delves into the same issue of alcoholism, but the lyrics are mystifying enough, that you could spent a lot of time and brainpower putting it into any semblance of order or meaning. Which, somehow not surprisingly, is probably the point when it comes to speaking on such a painful and mystifying topic.

I have witnessed TPC seven times between 2009 and 2019, but I admit I lost touch with their fourth album, 2018’s TPC, never having listened to it in full nor purchased it. I’ll correct that oversight. But the last song they played for us from that album was “Ready to Win”. Dave told us that this song is always tied to DC, as he wrote it while he was at the Black Cat on his 20th birthday (I’m sure he had a giant X on his hand). The song is about fucking up everything, but transcending all those fuck ups and reaching a point when you’re ready. Ready to be a winner. It is really a mantra we need today. We need it bad here in DC. The lyrics cannot be contained, ‘Just go and fuck up, fuck up fucking up, nothing but fucking up, never e-fucking-nough, and you’ll be strong, and then you’ll be fearless, because you’ve done it all and your tear ducts are tearless, and then you’ll remember, there’s a fire in your heart, a dream in your head, permission to start, and from out of the silence you will hear your voice, like a big fucking siren and you won’t have a choice, and you will stand up, throw caution to the wind, and you will scream out that you are ready to win.’ Someone absolutely wrote that while sitting at the Black Cat.

In their haloed career, they managed to release four studio albums, and a mix of EPs, a cover, a demo, and a couple live albums. It was their first album, Elephant Shell (via Saddle Creek), that caught my attention and hooked me, with its uniquely unconventional sounds. Specifically, the penultimate song they performed “Listen to the Math”, has proved to be my favorite of theirs for many years. Which is hilarious because Dave said, as they played an atmospheric lead in (not on the album), ‘This is someone’s favorite song.’ It was clear I had never been alone on that island.

The final song of the main set was another crowd pleaser called “Tessellate”, also from Elephant Shell. You may have scratched your head over the definition at the top, but there’s always a reason for everything, and this song is about ‘Broken hearts tessellate tonight’ with a piercing hook and Dave’s plaintive voice manifesting this broken hearted story for the final time.

They returned for the encore, and new emotions started trickling in. The last two songs I’d ever see them perform live hits different when it’s true. They played “Cheer It On” from a Lesson in Crime, and “Your English Is Good” from Elephant Shell. Graham went ballistic during “Cheer It On”, rocking and dancing both in front of the keyboard and all over the stage, maybe recognizing that one has to leave it all on the table for the last hurrah. Dave also led us in a farewell, ‘There’s one more thing we must do. We need a real moment to all wave goodbye to each other.’ We all waved at the band and they waved at us, and they probably recorded it, but who could tell with so many emotions flying around? Who indeed.

In total we were graced with 29 TPC songs, sampling from all four of their studio albums, in multiples of two (8 + 8 + 4 + 2), and they also spent a lot of time on A Lesson In Crime (6). (I told you I liked “Listen to the Math”.) They did not perform their two concluding singles, “Just A Scratch” and “Catch Me If You Can”, but that’s okay. We wanted to remember all our favorites first, so maybe someday, while we reminisce about bands no longer together, we’ll put those dulcet tunes on and feel a new spark to go out and fuck up before we’re ready to win again.

And so concludes our good words about TPC (but not our emotions). No waving, just Goodbye.

Setlist