Mac DeMarco09.24.25
Vancouver, BC
Indie's resident oddball is back! I genuinely thought Mac DeMarco was done with the music industry back in 2023, when he gave us two meandering instrumental albums in Five Easy Hot Dogs and One Wayne G. Especially One Wayne G — forgive me on that one, but I never made it through the entire nine and a half hour runtime. But he has reemerged this year, back on vocals with his new album Guitar, and a tour to go along with it. Make no mistake, he's still very much marching to the beat of his own drum with Guitar, still keeping it minimal. But he seems to have at least partially re-embraced a typical album rollout and tour cycle, making time for a stop here in Vancouver at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
I've seen Mac DeMarco only once before, back in 2019 at Osheaga for a late afternoon set. It was one of the worst crowds I have ever seen, people passing out left and right in the heat, perhaps under the influence of any number of substances. I would not jump to see him again under those kinds of circumstances, but seeing him at his own headlining show, at a proper venue like the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, sounded fine to me. Tickets sold out almost instantly, but luckily I snagged one before they were gone. Resale prices were nuts, with even the worst seats going for at least $200. Which in principle seems to go against Mac's whole ethos, but I suppose it comes with the territory of being an indie icon that has involuntarily captured the attention of younger generations on TikTok.
A band called Mock Media, hailing from Vernon, BC, opened the show. I didn't grab my seat until they were done, since I was in the merch line. They sounded alright from what I could hear from the hallway! I snagged a hat and a shirt. The hat had a Mac's Record Label logo on it, in the style of the classic orange NHL logo. And the shirt was a play on the government of Canada logo, the one with the little Canadian flag on top of the final A, but instead of "Canada" it said "Guitar". Two impressively Canadian offerings from one of the nation's finest musical exports.
Mac's setup had absolutely no frills. Just him, his band, and the house lights shining down in purple the whole show. Talk about focusing on the music!
Of course, he did live in Vancouver early on in his career, so he had lots of content to draw from for crowd banter. He mentioned his time living in Killarney, and shared a fascinating tidbit, that the last time he played Queen Elizabeth Theatre was twelve or thirteen years ago, opening for Phoenix. That would have been an awesome show. And he made sure to tease the Canucks fans in the crowd, randomly shouting out "bingo, bango, bongo, it's Roberto Luongo!" at least a couple times between songs, and also taking a moment to just scream "Connor McDavid" (he's an Oilers fan) and "Leon Draisaitl".
At one point, he suggested everyone to meet up at Pat's Pub on Hastings after the show. Being a transient Vancouver resident, I didn't know until afterwards that Pat's Pub has been closed for a few years. And honestly, while I don't mean to digress too much here, I think that's emblematic of my Vancouver experience — a city that, at least from the outside looking in, seemed to have a ton of momentum just over a decade ago, landing on the world stage with the 2010 Olympics and the Canucks' cup run in 2011. But I couldn't tell you where that energy went. Vancouver has doubled down on its reputation as a lifestyle capital and just doesn't seem to have much of an eclectic cultural scene these days. You get glimpses of it here and there, especially with shows at the Commodore, but I just have no idea where that energy has gone on a day-to-day basis.
Anyways! Of course, he's got a very idiosyncratic stage presence, bopping around the stage, juggling his mic and busting out some suggestive dance moves. The crowd ate it up.
And as far as the music went, he played most of Guitar, breaking it up with some of his older crowd favourites, with my own personal highlights being "Salad Days", "Freaking Out the Neighborhood", "My Kind of Woman", and of course the big one, "Chamber of Reflection". He came back out for a single encore, playing "Nobody" before bidding the Vancouver crowd adieu, promising to return soon.
