At the WISE Hall on Saturday, September 24

As much as no one left the WISE Hall complaining, one has to wonder what Besnard Lakes could do with a bigger budget.

Give one of the best—and arguably most underrated—bands in Montreal credit for giving it the old college try with obviously limited resources. Yes, there was visual eye candy during an Olio Festival headlining set that swung from devastatingly punishing to sublimely understated. But, no, said effects didn’t exactly make anyone forget about Kiss in the ’70s, the splatterheads of Gwar, or Marilyn Manson before he became a punchline in the Onion. What you got was a small fog machine that went off two or three times, and the sporadic firing up of small, flashing, Jolly Rancher–like lighting units. Such moments served as a frustrating taster of what might have been.

When the fog machine and lights were going, and the tsunamis of guitars were rolling off the stage, it was like being on the world’s best drugs, even if you weren’t. That’s another way of saying the epic riff-monster “Revolution” made for one of the most face-meltingly powerful concert moments of the year.

As for the rest of the night, it left you with the weird feeling that you were watching four people on-stage who somehow ended up in a band despite having little in common. That’s not a knock on the musicianship; Besnard Lakes were tight as fuck, this perhaps no surprise considering that singer-guitarist Jace Lasek and bassist Olga Goreas also happen to be husband and wife. Admirably, the group—which includes drummer Kevin Laing and guitarist Richard White—was just as comfortable doing bombastic as it was beautiful, channelling their inner Beach Boys on the percussion-bombed “On Bedford and Grand” and redefining haunting with “The Lonely Moan”. Double points for Besnard Lakes—which often appears live with a small army of hired guys—doing this a quartet on this night. And additional applause for using the encore to turn Trooper’s FM radio staple “We’re Here For a Good Time (Not a Long Time)” into a dark-hued piece of art.

What didn’t work? Well, at the risk of enraging those who think that a concert review should be about the music and nothing else, there’s a definite visual disconnect going with Besnard Lakes. With his ’70s-shag haircut, Dazed and Confused specs, and vintage-county-and-western shirt, Lasek looks like a bit like Peter Frampton crossed with the Flying Burrito Brothers. Goreas’s vintage librarian dress, meanwhile, suggested Babes in Toyland grunge. As for Laing and White, they looked like your average run-of-the-mill Canuck indie rockers, which is to say all of Broken Social Scene.

But if you’re one of those for whom the music is enough—even when there’s the tease of something grander—that’s almost not worth mentioning. And certainly nothing that couldn’t be fixed by, say, adding laser, confetti cannons, and a platoon of greased-up pole dancers to Besnard Lakes’ live show.