Jona Bechtolt of YACHT and Cameron Bird, Architecture in Helsinki's leading man, goof off backstage in Los Angeles.
Image by Claire Evans
On the road with Architecture in Helsinki
The Aussie band gets teenage kicks and a Tootsie Roll Pop during part of their American and Canadian tour
By Claire Evans
Published: July 2nd, 2007 | 1:50pm
Five years ago, Aussie indie-poppers Architecture in Helsinki were playing shows in clothing stores and dive bars to crowds of 20 people. With a potent combination of constant tours, euphoric live shows, and two (soon three) crystalline records packed with crooked pop hooks, AiH has skyrocketed in the last few years. By the time YACHT, mine and my boyfriend’s band, got to tag along on the West Coast leg of their U.S. tour last week, they were selling out 1,000-capacity theaters and playing to enraptured crowds of freaking out teenagers.
Day 1, June 13, 2007: Seattle
I've never met Architecture in Helsinki before, so I'm pretty nervous as we roll up to Neumo's, the legendary all ages club in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. When we get there, the band is already sound checking — a three hour ritual I'm gonna have to observe pretty much every night. The stage is littered with instruments: bongo drums, a trombone, a vertiginous drum set with extra attachments, and more guitars than I can count on one hand. The Architecturians are flitting around the instruments, switching them at a dizzying rate. During a pause, they all wave enthusiastically to me from the stage as though they’d just sighted land.
The Seattle show sets the pace for the rest of this tour. Wound up on soda pop and Pixy Stix, the crowd goes bonkers for the opening act, YACHT, and by the time AiH hits the stage, the club feels electric. Even though there's a slight equipment failure about halfway into the set — which Cameron Bird, AiH's neon-shirted lead singer, diffuses with a handful of jokes — sweatband-sporting teenagers go crazy for every song, pumping their fists in the air.
Day 2, June 14, 2007: Vancouver, British Columbia
It's always stressful for a band to drive across the border. You're supposed to pay taxes on any merchandise you bring into Canada and have official documents to prove you're playing a legit show. Most indie bands leave their merch in the states and slip across the border under the pretense of visiting friends. AiH, however, has all the right paperwork, and they're super-lucky, too, so they get across the Washington-Canada checkpoint without any trouble. Still, it's a long drive from Seattle to Vancouver, and once we get to the club — Richard's on Richard's — we're all pretty wrecked.
The green room at Richard's is small. I mean, really small: it's about the width of a hallway and barely fits the whole AiH crew. No one seems to mind, though, and Bird jokes about quitting the band, moving to Canada, and renting this room. I laughingly agree with him, pointing out to him that his potential new home has four chairs. "And a shelf!" he adds, grinning.
Day 3, June 15, 2007: Portland
The Portland show is appropriately jubilant. After all, it was after a short visit to Portland in 2002 that Bird, inspired by the buoyant music scene here, penned most of the fist Architecture in Helsinki album, Fingers Crossed. The Wonder Ballroom, a beautiful old building with springy wooden floors, is packed to capacity with people, and Architecture just kills it, bouncing all over the place. It feels like a stadium rock show, something that keyboardist and vocalist Kellie Sutherland enthusiastically seconds after they stagger off stage — “That was the best show yet!”
Day 4, June 16, 2007: San Francisco
I'm sitting behind a table stacked high with T-shirts when Amy, Architecture’s amazingly organized merch salesperson, turns to me and whispers in a conspiratorial tone, "You know, Gus ate a bug last night." I immediately start laughing. Gus Franklin, AiH's mop-topped drummer, isn't really the bug-eating type. What is she talking about? Amy's thrilled by this story: They drove through the night to get here, and at some delirious, sleep-deprived moment, Franklin reached for a broccoli stem from their leftover party platter and ate it, even though there was a bug on it, clear as day.
Bug-eating notwithstanding, the Architecture kids are loopy from lack of sleep, but their live show is as sweaty and frenetic as usual. After the gig, streams of people pour by the T-shirt stand, asking for autographs from the exhausted Australians. A couple of girls offer Jamie Mildren, the oft-guitarist, an orange Tootsie Roll Pop. He's never seen a Tootsie Roll Pop before and sucks on it tentatively for about five minutes before confiding in me that it "tastes like a medicine lolly." Even though their twangy accents are a dead giveaway, this is the first moment that I realize my new friends are totally from a different country.
Day 5, June 17, 2007: Pomona, California
A whole posse of kids show up to the show at Pomona's all-ages Glass House in matching "5" T-shirts, a reference to Architecture's music video for the song "It'5." Another guy is rocking an incredible hand-drawn Sharpie long-sleeve with matching Sharpie-doodled sweatbands. Bird loves the shirt and keeps finding excuses to talk to its wearer, a Pomona local called Ben. During Architecture in Helsinki's encore, Bird pulls Ben onto the stage and demands "catwalk music" from the band. Ben, stoked beyond comprehension, struts his stuff.
After the show, we hang out with a crew of teenagers on the sidewalk, listening to music blaring out of their parked Jeep. The kids are so excited, recording the conversations on their cell phones and high-fiving us all the time. I can't help but remember being 15, loitering around after seeing my favorite band, hoping to get a chance to talk to them. It's a testament to AiH's sweet natures that they fulfill these teen fantasies every night without so much as a shrug.
Day 6, June 18, 2007: Los Angeles
We've been looking forward to the L.A. show all week. The lineup is surreal — YACHT, Gang Gang Dance, Ariel Pink, and Architecture — and the Henry Fonda Theater is an institution, its front doors brushing up against the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Everyone seems to have friends in town, too. As soon as we get to the venue, we’re all excited, milling around the labyrinthine green-room area, spilling our drinks, sneaking extra all-access wristbands to our buddies outside.
While Architecture is playing probably their best show of the tour, a skinny teenage boy tries to sneak the backstage area and gets promptly kicked back out into the crowd by security. Inspired by the spirit of this tour and the open-hearted generosity of this incredible Australian band, I immediately run out to the crowd, find the kid — whose name is Vincent, I find out — and slip him a backstage pass. In a fitting homage to my week with Architecture in Helsinki, Vincent and I dance together like maniacs alongside the stage.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: When she's not piggy-backing on tours, Claire L. Evans is a freelance writer and artist who lives and works in Portland, Oregon. More of her projects can be found here: urbanhonking.com
Check venuszine.com/music for more music news and features, including Claire’s upcoming July jaunt to Japan with YACHT and Au Revoir Simone.
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