Live review · Montreal · Le Studio TD

10 Years Turn Le Studio TD Into a Time Machine to 2000s Alternative Radio

The Inner Darkness Tour, Conquer Divide opening, seventeen songs in a room small enough to see the sweat on the guitar necks. Exactly how you want to see this band.

By Axel CalderonSeptember 11, 2024Photos and video: Axel Calderon / TNR

A big band in a small room

Le Studio TD is one of the most intimate rooms in the Quartier des Spectacles, and that is the best possible way to see a band like 10 Years. Their songs were made for big alternative radio in the 2000s, but up close you hear how much detail is in them: the layered guitars, the space in the arrangements, the way Jesse Hasek’s voice sits right on top of it all.

Conquer Divide opened the night, and then 10 Years came out with “Shoot It Out”, straight into “Chasing the Rapture” and “Dancing With the Dead”.

Shot on my phone

A piece of the night from my phone

Through the catalogue, and a Nirvana cover

The set moved across their whole history: “Beautiful”, “Rise”, “The Shift”, “Waking Up”, “Fix Me”, “So Long, Good-Bye”, “The Unknown”, “Through the Iris”. In the middle of it all came a cover of Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box”, and the room took it as its own.

Hasek’s voice has that ache that made The Autumn Effect a staple of alternative radio, and it has not lost anything. In a room this size you also hear how heavy this band can be: “Russian Roulette” and “Vampires” hit much harder live than on record.

“Some of the best rock shows happen in rooms that hold a few hundred people.”

Wasteland, the song that brought us here

“Novacaine” and “The Optimist” set up the finale, and then “Wasteland”, the song that brought most of us to this band, closed the night exactly as it should.

Sources: setlist.fm.