The Music Hall stage is a perfect illustration of the duo’s growth as performers – together they found a sound that helps them stand out in any playlist, win over a wide variety of audiences, and maintain their music’s originality. Those good looks are just a bonus.

The duo smoothly played through tracks from their latest release Days Gone By, occasionally mixing in older hits like “Far From The Tree”. Rarely pausing between songs, Bob Moses’ set was seamless, visibly appealing to everyone’s favorites – to many in the crowd, every track was a favorite.

A few tracks in, Vallance shared the band’s struggles – Canadian customs were harsh on their crew, and none of their equipment made it through to Canada. If it hadn’t been for event promoter group Embrace, who hustled all day to gather gear for the duo, there wouldn’t have been a show. I think I speak for many when I say we’re glad they didn’t turn back and go home, as many have after a customs hassle.

Every Bob Moses show is a memorable one – with the track they’re on, you might want to grab tickets before they become a stadium band.

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The day was off to an early start and as people slowly found their way to The Garrison Commons Kirk Knight was blowing up the smaller stage where a pretty solid group of people was cheerfully singing along and following Knight’s directions in perfect unison. Close to the end of his set Knight practically made the crowd beg for “Knight Time” – “No Toronto, that’s not gonna do, let me hear you!” and beg they did. The track had put this rapper on the map last year and is still causing waves.

Taking the stage next was Brooklyn’s Chrome Sparks who braved an hour long set in uncharacteristic tropical heat like a champ despite his equipment melting playing tracks from everyone’s favorite “Marijuana” and “Send The Pain On” to the newest EP Parallelism. Jacques Greenestepped on following Sparks. This Canadian native begun his career just a few years ago releasing hard hitting remixes of Radiohead and The XX. Today Greene also releases his own works, expertly produced, built for the dance floor and skillfully delivered Greene’s music may have come a bit early in the day but, nonetheless, drew a crowd around the small backstage.

With hardly any shade in sight TIME festival crowd was splitting into campers and dancers: those who lounged around on blankets under trees and the energetic groups fighting their way to the front and dancing their sweaty little hearts out. A good chunk of both joined by late arrivals made their way over to the main stage for Joey Bada$$.

Beginning his set with the classics like “Hardknock” Joey Bada$$ energetically worked his way through to the newer tracks inviting special guests on stage for some topical freestyle and his ‘“brother” Kirk Knight for a joined performance of “Knight Time” – that’s right, one more time, and everyone welcomed it. Accessorized with the usual amount of “fuck the police” a moshpit begun to gather at the front of the stage propping up brave crowd surfers for a sunny swim into the arms of security. Playing out a full set and an encore he bid the audience goodbye prompting the spread of “peace and love worldwide.”

With a small delay TOKiMONSTA (Jennifer Lee) took the small stage to the West, “We’re gonna start slow, I’m going to take you on a journey” said Lee to the first notes of “Kick Push.” If you’ve ever heard TOKi spin “Kick Push” live you know the track is not quite slow but it is definitely a great way to begin a journey.

Playing her original tracks, collaborations with Anderson .Paak and everyone’s favorite classic hip hop tracks like M.O.P. “Ante Up” and Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” with a mix of newer remixes including Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” Lee once again proved she knows how to make any audience happy no matter the weather or size of the stage.Smoothly passing through Khelani, KINK and Broods sets TIME seemed to satisfy every music lover present with sets scheduled in a way you could actually see every act. With a half an hour to spare till the main headliner, Run The Jewels, Bob Moses stepped out on the smokey Overtime Stage. Waiting for the duo to come out I couldn’t help but overhear the chit chat in the audience and a common misconception that Bob Moses is a solo project and will likely play, well, Bob Moses. As Tom Howie and Jimmy Vallance took the stage people pushed in closer with vivid curiosity and less than a track in it was obvious that Moses fans did not just attend, they came prepared with lyrics memorized.

On the other side of the park El-P and Killer Mike, aka Run The Jewels, joked about the moshpit that the photopit was, joked about their own songs and not even 10 minutes into the set insisted people put all of their expensive things away because shit was about to get real. The sounds of “Run The Jewels” begun to envelop the park as people flooded to the stage.

If anyone is wandering what color RTJ 3 is going to be, it will be “the color of love” – that’s your quick look into the RTJ future. In the meanwhile, there is always the OGs and Meow The Jewels.

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“It’s great to be back at CODA” chimed Bob Moses‘ Jimmy Vallance while arranging himself in the corner of the stage. The set up was quite simple, barely lit, with a couple of stand up curtains in the center to set the mood. The set kicked off with “Talk,” one of the darker tracks from the recent release Days Gone By, which set the stage for the rest of the night.

All music the duo makes is deeply personal and based on real life experiences, “Lots of the songs are about the same relationships” said Vallance during our pre-tour interview, some of those songs are about their relationship to the world, which they framed in a way that sounds like a relationship between two people. It could be that emotion which Vallance and Tom Howie put into the songs that makes them easy to relate to and easy to get attached to. Organized glitchy beats set a powerful runway for Howie’s soft vocals that seem somewhat cold compared to the emotional depth of the lyrics, but it all somehow makes sense, it shows a kind of immunity to pain and strength in recovery.

Days Gone By dropped less than a month ago, but people in this crowd already knew the lyrics. Hearing people talk, it was clear the crowd was divided into the old Bob Moses fans and the new ones, “This one is my favorite” I overhear a couple talking about “Far From The Tree” from the Far From The Tree EP.

Vallance and Howie played a solid hour-long set, mixing tracks from Days Gone By and Far From The Tree EP including “All I Want.” All the way to the last beat of the encore, people remained in their spots, dancing and bopping. This tour is off to a great start.

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Last week, Bob Moses released their long-awaited debut album Days Gone By. As Vallance and Howie tread through their tour, Quip caught up with the duo to chat about their process, working through emotions, the new album, and much more.

Kateryna Topol: You grew up together in Vancouver — when and why did you move to Brooklyn?

Bob Moses: We both moved to Brooklyn separately. Both of us felt a strong desire to get out of Vancouver and explore the world. Jimmy actually moved there to chase a girl, in short, and Tom moved there after spending a year in Boston at the Berklee College of Music, because it was close and made sense. 

KT: But the two of you only started working together fairly recently (in comparison to the years you’ve known each other). Do you ever wonder why you didn’t try to collaborate sooner?

BM: We think it just sort of happened when it made sense. The world works in mysterious ways, you know? We both needed to do our own thing and to grow separately to a place where we were ready to work with one another, we think. It’s all worked out great and we think the work and experiences (both good and bad), musically and otherwise, that we had before working together really helped make our partnership super strong from the beginning.

KT:  I’ve read that you live together — do you still? And if yes, does that result in spontaneous music-making?

BM: We do live together, although now it’s mostly on planes and in hotels. It’s a great vibe to be in the same place. You wake up and start talking about music or something you’ve read over coffee, then that inspires something later in the studio. It just works well, and yes, it definitely inspires spontaneity, and really that’s why we do it. So far we’ve always had our studio in a separate place close to our apartment in NYC, but now we’re getting excited about just putting the studio right in the house and having the whole place steeped in music all the time.

KT: There are 12 tracks on Days Gone By, and they are strong throughout. How long did the album take?

BM: The album took about 12 months to make from start to finish. However, we did tour very heavily in that time, playing 80+ gigs all over the world. It was definite challenge to tour so much and make a record, and we would play quite a bit less next time around. But it was also great to tour and keep ourselves grounded in a sense, so that we could try stuff out live and have the live performance aspect of what we do inform our album, as well.

KT: Do you have a favorite song on it?

BM: Our favorite song switches from time to time, of course, but overall it’s probably “Tearing Me Up”.

KT: That’s my favorite too! How come that one?

BM: Really, because it was the first song that once we had it we were like, “Ok, this is something we can really build the record around.”  It came easily and quickly, in a big gush of inspiration. It took only a few days from inception to completion and was a real joy to make the whole time. Sometimes tracks are hard, or you get stuck, or you have to sit on them for a while — but with this one, the floodgates opened and it was just about letting it out. It’s a really beautiful thing when that happens.

KT: You’ve said before that all of your work is deeply personal, which makes me wonder — Days Gone By is a pretty sad collection, like song after song of sadness and shitty relationships — [was it] all inspired by your life experiences? 

BM: Well…yes, the songs are all inspired by personal experiences. Writing for us is a very cathartic process lots of the time, and so we guess this is why it comes out that way. Also, all the music we love, or most of it, from the blues through rock, jazz, electronic, R&B etc., is always quite sad or based in working through something personal or collective. Music is a method of escape, of finding solace in something, and so this is how we feel when we write and what naturally comes out, it seems.

Lots of the songs are about the same relationships, and lots of the time when we are writing about someone it could also be society or our relationship to the rest of the world, which we’ve framed in a way that could make it sound like a love song between two people. If we look through the track list, about half the songs are about actual love relationships, and then some are about other familial relationships, and then the rest are about our relationship to the world around us, society, what have you.

KT: The woman in “Tearing Me Up” — is she a real person?

BM: Yup!

KT: Oh! Ok, let’s talk about the tour a little — you’ve already played a few sold-out shows and had festival appearances. How is the world treating you so far?

BM: The world is being very kind to us. We are very thankful to be able to go all the places we go, and to be honest, the amount of people that show up in some places and know our music is surprising and very humbling. Playing live is the most fun for us, so we are super excited to keep touring hard and to play this album and share it with the world and as many people as will listen.

KT:  How was Burning Man? Any interesting stories? 

BM: Burning Man was a blast! We had way more fun than we did last time, which is saying a lot, and our performances at Robot Heart and White Ocean were the highlights for us, for sure. We have lots of great friends who go to Burning Man, so from riding electric bikes through dust storms, or playing with Skrillex at Robot Heart with P. Diddy dancing behind us — it was all just a blast!

KT: Awesome! So what’s next for Bob Moses?

BM: We’re currently rehearsing in Vancouver for our upcoming tour through North America, and then over to Europe, and then the rest of the world! We’re just ready to play and take this music to as many people as will listen.

Tour dates and show tickets can be found here.

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