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Broken Social Scene's Halloween tour-ending show in Montreal
Review by Music Vice contributor Elizabeth Keith - November 5, 2008
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Gig/Concert: |
Broken Social Scene with Land of Talk opening |
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Venue: |
Metropolis, Montreal, Quebec |
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Date: |
Devil's Night! Ocober 31, 2008 |
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| Headliners: |
Broken Social Scene |
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In one word: |
Blinding |
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Your say: |
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I arrive just as Montreal’s Land of Talk take the stage, dressed up as Ranbow Brite (vox & guitarist Elizabeth Powell), bassist Chris McCarron as what might be Zaphod Beeblebrox – I can’t name any other two-headed spacemen, so that’s my best guess – and a twelve-foot-tall giraffe (Eric Thibodeau on drums). Most impressively, the extra five feet of the giraffe costume – the neck and the dementedly smiling face – will stay on for the entire set. This is what Halloween is all about, kids.
This is my first encounter with Land of Talk (and the third time I’ve seen BSS) and they put on an impressive hour-long set – they are thoughtful and euphoric, with Powell’s guitar taking turns soaring or sounding like wind chimes caught in a frenetic breeze. Her voice can be a whisper or a shriek, but manages to escape that pitch that sets my ears on edge – her voice is too strong to be dismissed as whimsical, but still has a childlike quality to it (or maybe it’s just the Rainbow Brite costume? The bowl cut isn’t helping the impression any, either.) Drummer Eric Thibodeau plays an impressive driving force unimpeded by his costume choice; really, I kept waiting for them to break and take the damn thing off, but no.
Playing a fair amount from their latest release Some are Lakes, they rarely slow down and give the audience a quieter moment, with the exception of It’s Okay, a wringer of a heartbreak song that snagged me with “I’ll never tell you / but you’re my little scar.” They are joined onstage by a sax player from Broken Social Scene who’s wearing the most frightening bunny head since Donnie Darko. I never manage to identify him behind that grinning animal cartoon head, which takes turns being comical and creepy.
Like I said, this is the third time I’ve seen BSS live – Calgary Folk Fest and Osheaga 2008 preceded this occasion – and the third time charm has certainly wormed its way into my withered little heart. There are too many distractions going on at outdoor music events - the weather, competing bands, the quickie stage setups - so I’m glad to have finally seen them on their own stage – and they put on one hell of a show this time around, clocking in at almost three hours. There really isn’t anything more they could do to win me over as a fan - their music is this beautiful eclecticism, melding styles and textures to converge in a beatific noise that soars and shakes towards euphoria. As has been my experience, their live shows only add to the experiment.
"...Andrew Whiteman in a toga...kicked up his feet, I was standing in the front, so thank you for avoiding another Ashley MacIssac stunt."
The band strolls – or staggers, as one band member in a mummy getup did – onstage in various costumes and after launching through the second song, founding member Kevin Drew asks the crowd to “Please welcome to the stage my wife, Brendan Canning”, a reference to Canning’s cute little black dress and pigtails (“I’m supposed to be the dirtbag husband,” is how Drew later explains his lazy-man’s costume of flannel shirt and jeans.) Also dressed up is Charles Spearin in simple devil horns, and Andrew Whiteman in a toga and a Greek-eyed mask, (and black shorts – he kicked up his feet, I was standing in the front, so thank you for avoiding another Ashley MacIssac stunt).
A couple of songs into the show, Spearin announces, “This is the experimental part of the show,” and brings on stage the bunny-headed sax player to demonstrate an interesting side project of Spearin’s: he interviewed people in his neighbourhood about life and love, or whatever mattered most to them and then created music played according to the cadences and rhythms of their speech. The challenging result is interesting, and has a lot of potential – the sample we got was of Mrs. Morris, Spearin’s neighbour, talking about how love is the most important thing in the world. Having a saxophone player play out the cadences of the woman’s speech was an engaging improvisation that harkens back to jazz’s experimental roots – I would definitely check this out in the future.
"This is no paint-by-numbers set run-through...they are clearly enjoying themselves and intent on taking the audience along for the ride"
BSS soar though the rest of their set, joined occasionally by Land of Talk’s Liz Powell, most notably on the wistful – and most accurately titled - Anthems For A Seventeen-Year Old Girl, among others. Crowd favorites like KC Accidental, Fire Eye’d Boy, Superconnected, and Looks Just Like the Sun all get people moving, but the crowd really gets its collective ass shaking with funk-and-horns rush of Love is New, towards the end punctuated by Drew’s declaration, “If you truly are alive […] if you’re truly fighting to feel alive, then it sounds like this.”
This is no paint-by-numbers set run-through – it’s the last show of their tour, on Halloween to boot, and they are clearly enjoying themselves and intent on taking the audience along for the ride. By the time the last strains of It’s All Gonna Break run through Metropolis, it’s the Witching Hour and as the euphoric crowd (including Jesus, who had to check his cross with the coats) spills into the streets, there’s little that can bring down the energy of the night. Unless of course you’re me, and you run across a crazy/drunk grossly obese woman flailing around the corpses of her two pet rats on the Metro, but yeah, that’s about what it would’ve had to take to crash the mood. Happy Halloween.
© Elizabeth Keith
Broken Social Scene - www.brokensocialscene.ca
