On their recent stop in Vancouver, Travis played at the opulent Orpheum Theatre, a gorgeous venue full of red carpets and gold leaf scrollwork. It was a fine backdrop for the band's lilting tunes.

Vocalist Fran Healy, recently seen with a longer haircut, was again sporting his older established close-cropped 'do. The guys opened with "Happy To Hang Around," and a couple songs later, launched into "Writing To Reach You," which proved to be a huge crowd favourite. At this point, everyone leapt out of their seats, and started waving Scottish flags around, and generally just causing a huge ruckus.

Healy shortly thereafter peppered the moments between a couple of songs by informing the room that this was the first gig of the year for them, again, to more cheers from the audience. As the night progressed, he proved to be a very engaging man, with a wonderful sense of humour, and a delightful way of interacting with the crowd. During the band's popular tune "Sing,"he encouraged us to, "Sing, Vancouver, sing!" And sing Vancouver did. It also continued to dance, somewhat disregarding common seated-show etiquette. By the time half a dozen songs had passed, security had tried, and failed, to get the audience members back into their rows after they repeatedly rushed the stage to dance in the large, open area at the front and up and down the aisles. Seeing no point in this action every minute, the security staff finally gave up and let people do what they wanted. The song "Beautiful Occupation" included stunning three-part harmonies amongst Healy, bassist Douglas Payne, and guitarist Andy Dunlop. Dunlop was outfitted casually in a "disco sucks" shirt, and was quite active for much of the show. Conversely, Payne donned a swank-looking suit, and stayed quite still throughout, casting smug little smiles around at the crowd. Off in the back, on a riser but still quite obscured by his kit, sat drummer Neil "sticks and stones may break my neck" Primrose. How he arrived at that moniker, I am uncertain.

More banter from Healy, who grabbed a towel from a tech to mop off his sweaty head from his leaping, bounding exertion. The towel was brown, and he commented that it was more like something to wipe your bottom with. Charming. Later, he told us about his somewhat-recent 30th birthday, and then compared the human brain to a hard drive. When you fill it with too many memories, it gets full, and some of the memories get deleted to make space for the new ones.

Honestly, while the sound in the Orpheum is incredible (being designed for theatre acoustics), Travis' songs are sweet and fun, and the show was visually engaging, much of the character bled out of it from Healy's quirkiness between songs. Therefore, I'll continue to mention what occurred. Late in the set, a tech wandered out onto the stage and handed Healy a set of nail clippers. As he stood by the microphone, cutting his nails so close to it that the sound of each one being severed was amplified around the room, he explained that he finds nail-cutting to be a traumatic experience, like talking to a girl. An unlikely comparison, but certainly he's not known for being predictable. As he continued to talk, a girl in the front row kept yelling something at him. Eventually, he took notice of her and basically let her ramble on a bit before tritely saying, "See these things in my ears? They're called earplugs; I can't hear what you're saying." He then did his best impression of the agitated yapping that he was hearing from her. He decided to be a nice guy and accommodate her however, removing one earplug and standing at the edge of the stage to hear what she was trying to tell him. He seemed a bit taken aback when he realized that she wanted him to take her scarf that she'd tossed onto the stage, and then give it back to her. He shrugged and took it, wrapped it around his noggin and tied it in the front with a big knot, then turned to the audience and shook the rag-tag ends about a little. He looked back at the girl in the crowd then and said, "Is this what you want? I've worn it, now you want it back? Do I look dashing?" He peeled it back off his head and threw it back at her.

Huge show highlight to end the regular portion of the set : "All I Wanna Do Is Rock." This song is incredible. It just rises and rises to this fevered crescendo, where everyone on stage finally broke down and turned this fairly-composed set into a pile of pandemonium. Healy wheeled about the stage and sang his lines with a pained face, and Dunlop made his way on top of his Orange amp for a one-handed guitar-aloft solo. Pretty incredible, and he looked like he might be in danger atop the teetering tower of gear. He lived though, and the guys ended the tune and walked off stage with a few waves and nods.

Soon, Healy appeared again on the stage by himself with an acoustic guitar. He stood with his toes at the edge of the stage and told everyone to be very quiet because he was going to perform the next song without the microphone. He stomped his foot on the ground a few times in front of the hushed audience, just to get his beat, and then sang a touching version of "Flowers In The Window."

Then, his band joined him on stage, as the audience went berserk. Healy introduced us to the next song, the aptly-titled anti-war "Peace the Fuck Out." Rather than simply stating common drivel about how war is bad, he told about how "fuck" is a great word - it's the word that got us all here. After that, we got one more song, sung by Payne, and that was all. The audience was slow in leaving, and continued their cheering in hopes of a second encore, even after the lights went up and music started to play over the auditorium's sound system. I know I shuffled out of there feeling quite warm from what I'd just seen. Travis is full of love.

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : April 22, 2004.