In early March, Said The Whale reached out to their fans to host listening parties for their latest record, As Long As Your Eyes Are Wide. In part, to ditch the constraints of traditional advertising, but also to connect one-on-one with fans old and new, giving them a unique opportunity to share with their friends and communities all over the world. There were listening parties from New Zealand to South Africa to Wisconsin to Vancouver.
When Rocktographers heard about this, we reached out to our good pals at Vinyl Envy about hosting a listening party for As Long As Your Eyes Are Wide in their record shop. It’s hands down my favourite place to buy records in Victoria, BC. It’s also a good place to see a concert or record Rocktographers Sessions.
It turns out the the way to run a successful album listening party is to spend $30 at Bulk Barn on candy. With little pirate ships filled with blue whale candies, gummy sharks, gummy frogs, and cola bottles (we had to keep it nautically themed), everyone had a little bit of a sugar buzz.
Several people mentioned that they’d heard about our listening party through social media and on our local radio station, The Zone @ 91.3. They’ve been amazing supporters of us over the years and we cannot thank them enough for what they do for this city. If you don’t listen to them, you are missing out.
A majority of the folks who came out were big Said The Whale fans who were excited by the prospect of listening to the album over a full week before everyone else. They’re now part of a secret club that they can brag to their friends about.
There were several giggles from the crowd as they were surprised to hear several curse words in I Will Follow You. The song has quickly become my favourite off the album as I found myself humming it at work on Tuesday morning.
About halfway through the album a few of our guests got their boogie shoes on and danced to the track Confidence. It was definitely one of the crowd favourites of the evening. It certainly had all of us at Rocktographers toe tapping.
Throughout the evening, several comparisons to We Are The City, M83, and Neon Indian came up. Said The Whale poured their heart and soul into this album. Yes, it has some definitive electronic sounds in it, but it remains a Said The Whale record through and through. Stay tuned for all of our thoughts on the album when our review comes out next week.
After we finished listening to As Long As Tour Wide in its entirety, we drew for tickets to Said The Whale’s upcoming April 28th show at Sugar Nightclub that were graciously given to us by Atomique Productions. The pair of ladies who won tickets couldn’t have been bigger Said The Whale fans, singing along and bopping the whole album through. One even mentioned that her sister did a tour poster for the band at the Commodore a while back.
Rocktographers had a blast hosting this listening party with our friends at Vinyl Envy. It was a great excuse to eat candy, hang out, listen to great music, eat candy, and just have fun on a Monday night. Hopefully, we’ll be hosting some more nights like this in the not-too-distant future if Vinyl Envy’s Mike and Matt will let us.
