thursday october 25
Kevin Drew had the sniffles, but didn't let that get him down
@ commodore ballroom
Arts&Crafts veterans Broken Social Scene paid a little visit to Vancouver and played some beautiful music that night.
The last time I had seen them was a couple of years ago, and the two experiences to me proved the total dynamic and originality of sound that only the 19-person Toronto-based group can shape.
Kicking off their North American tour that night, the show was testosterone-charged set which only could have been induced by Kevin Drew setting up a competition for who could go the longest without taking a bath. Well, actually that was a direct stab at Justin Peroff, who was sweaty beyond belief and spraying it around by shaking his beard all over the place.
Playing a set list of their most recent album, Justin Peroff, Brenden Canning and James Shaw from Metric blasted their tunes distortedly charged and ultra-masculine sounding. There was also some fun sampling with a 30 second stab at “Love and Mathematics,” but Canning didn’t remember the bass part for it so they stopped and played “cause = time” in a way that couldn’t be larger or louder. Even Andrew Kenny from The American Analog set tagged along and treated everyone with the soft Texas-indie sounds of “Hard to Find.”
I felt bad for Kevin, who was hopped up on Sudafed and suffering from copious amounts of phlegm, but he gave it his all and wailed through a rocked-out version of “Lovers’ Spit,” and gave a supersexy throaty texture to the highest frequencies of “Superconnected.” I also particularly enjoyed James’ frantic gyrations; for some reason he’s the only person I’ve ever seen who can make those range of movements look good.
Actually, I’d venture to make the claim that Broken Social Scene can make anything look good, even influenza. But who am I to say?