)|
10/18/08 Gargoyle St. Louis, Missouri
Photograph10/19/08 University of Illinois Urbana, IL 10/21/08 Toad’s Place Richmond, VA 10/22/08 State Theatre Falls Church, VA 10/24/08 Masonic Temple Brooklyn, NY 10/25/08 Bowdoin College Brunswick, ME 10/26/08 Wilbur Theatre Boston, MA 10/30/08 Bronson Centre Ottawa, ON 10/31/08 Metropolis Montreal, Quebec 11/08/08 ManiFest Mexico 11/18/08 Cannery Ballroom Nashville, TN 11/19/08 Variety Playhouse Atlanta, GA 11/20/08 The Moon Tallahassee, FL 11/21/08 Jannus Landing St. Petersburg, FL 11/22/08 Club Cinema Pompano Beach, FL 11/27/08 Sound Academy Toronto, ON 11/28/08 Sound Academy Toronto, ON |
Here is a math problem: At any given moment a few dozen Broken Social Scene band members exist on this planet, creating Music! (M!), either collectively or individually. If k = Kevin Drew, b = Brendan Canning, i = instruments and their humans, and f = previous female vocalists with established solo careers and/or have been featured in Apple commercials, then solve for M!:
(k + b) + 20i) – 2f = M!
Watching BSS perform on Monday was similar to watching a math genius write some really long complex equation on a chalkboard: confusing, nauseating, awesome, mentally painful, impressive, bizarre-o, nice. It’s literally impossible for me to describe the show in a logical, succinct fashion because in order to do so I would probably need to create new words like “bogglebang” and “fantizzle“ and I’m just really tired. Instead, what follows is a bulleted list of highlights from the show, immediately followed by some lowlights. Both lists are underlined:
List of Highlights
- Brendan Canning (“beardy”) literally leaping into the air, defying age and science (and answering the question: what would Peter Pan look like if he grew up and didn’t shave for ten years?).
- Kevin Drew peeling off a used band-aid and tossing it into the audience (not on eBay yet).
- Two men in business casual dress high-fiving each other after a particularly awesome/nauseating “song.”
- On a similar note, the ratio of hipsters to normal people was surprisingly not 500:2.
- KD attempting to crowd surf but actually sort of walking off the stage into the audience. I think he was giving hugs.
- Sam Goldberg of curiously (and probably ironically) named Canadian group Hawaii singing THE SEXIEST SONG EVER: “Three Thousand Miles.”
- LOUD. At one point Goldberg mouthed “loud” to a bandmate. Yeah, I know dude, I’m standing right in front of a giant speaker.
- BSS fans are easy to please! KD promised to “rock his guts out” for us but could have stood on stage eating a sandwich, judging by the crowd’s apeshit reaction to every single song (even the bad ones).
Some Lowlights
- The “impromptu jam” inspired the dude in front of me to initiate air drumming.
- A large cluster of unwashed youth obstructed my view of the large cluster of unwashed musicians; stepping on (my own) gum was also upsetting.
- This may be sacrilegious to say, but: sometimes the dizzying instrumental outros made me feel like I needed to use the bathroom.
- Adorable Liz Powell (of Land of Talk) contributed pretty lady sounds to the man mix but had to leave early due to strained vocal cords (or maybe she was gettin’ some backstage. Who knows, really).
Lowlights notwithstanding, BSS was pretty fucking awesome (am I right, apeshit fans? Yeah! Trumpets!). I’m going to guess that the reason why the band has such a loyal, diverse following is their ability to produce accessible “experimental” music, in the same vein as The Flaming Lips or a more convoluted Arcade Fire. You can dance like a crazy person or you can just, you know, stand there and robotically move your head, it doesn’t matter. That’s the beauty of this type of music—it’s embracing (and forgiving). Supposedly the band played, like, seventeen encores and then KD refused to leave the stage or something. We didn’t stay. Another thing about accessible experimental rock shows is that you can leave any time and still feel fulfilled and generally positive about life (take that, techno!).
Broken Social Scene is currently on tour, through November (select dates with Land of Talk). Visit their website for more information.
* This is also one of three ways that math can be applied to real life. The other ways are: calculating tips and teaching math.
Note from Vu 10/18/08 9:53am: Apologies to Lara, I was waiting for a photography from this show.
Comments