LIVE WIRE: Hank & Lily are cult favourites... Heck, they're even being pursued by one!

(The new Tide commercial proved far too weird for their marketing executives to handle. © 2008 Matty Conrad, courtesy of Hank Pine.)

Hank & Lily are not your average band. (They’re also not your average comic book artists.) In fact, the closest that I can come to defining them is as Canadian cult icons, hailing from the land of garden tea parties and wax museum tourist traps; Victoria, BC. Unbeknownst to most of the Vancouver indie scene, Hank & Lily brought self-professed vaudeville rock to Granville Island last Friday night, appearing at Performance Works for the 5th Annual PuSh Festival. And what’s more, it was free!

Having been a Hank & Lily fan for the better part of a year now after finding a bunch of free downloads off their webpage, I was immediately attracted to their off-the-beaten-path character-based performance antics. Hank & Lily don’t just play as whatever boring normal people they might be in the real world; they play as Hank Pine, mysterious gas mask wearing mass-murder suspect carrying his dead girlfriend around in a plastic bag towards New Orleans so he can give her a proper burial, and Lily Fawn, a happy-go-lucky kidnapper as sweet as the day is gay, borne out of wedlock after a passionate night between her all-too-human mother and a reindeer named Buck. Sound insane? Trust me, the insanity’s the best part.

(Hank & Lily live at Performance Works. © 2009 Andrew Bishop.)

With their cabaret indie rock serving as a soundtrack for their graphic novel misadventures, Hank & Lily embrace the weird and theatrical. On Friday, Hank and Lily were joined by bassist Cecil the Weasel and backup singers The Avatars of the Second Sun Choir (or the A.S.S. Choir, for short). A red velvet curtain served as their backdrop with “The Hank & Lily Show” boldly emblazoned upon a banner atop it, and theatre dust was everywhere to drive home the point that Hank & Lily had been travelling for miles across the North American countryside just to play us a show. Pouring flour on the drum skins was a nice touch as well. Every time Lily hit the floor tom, she’d set off tiny explosions of dust and this in itself was immensely fascinating, never mind the fact that they were putting on one of the most energetic live shows I’ve seen since Trike played at Hoko’s.

There were trumpets and a flute, one of the backup singers from the A.S.S. Choir remains one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, and somehow, Hank & Lily had me up at the front and dancing like an idiot with my friends. If you ever get the chance to see a Hank & Lily show, for fuck’s sake, go! I’m almost positive they’re already big in Japan.

Hank & Lily's Vancouver Set List:

• God Don't Like It ("Long Black Snake Moan" reprise)
• Don't Be Afraid
• Que Hora
• We Can Take You Apart
• We Can Build You
• A Part of the Whole
  
• We Got Bones
• Bomb In Your Heart
  
• Xanadu
• Prison Song
• Long Black Snake Moan
• North America
• Big Plans
• Lucifer*
• Barfly*

* Songs marked with an asterisk were played during the encore.

Lily Fawn plays her first solo show opening for Rodney DeCroo at The Black Frog (108 Cambie Street) this Valentine's Day. Doors at 9, cover charges may apply.