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Stars at First Avenue
Stars Setlist
My Brightest Diamond Setlist
Tour Dates
12.3.2018 | Majestic Theatre | Madison, WI
12.5.2018 | Metro | Chicago, IL 12.6.2018 | Saint Andrew's Hall | Detroit, MI 12.7.2018 | Maxwell’s Concerts | Waterloo 12.8.2018 | New Vision United Church | Hamilton 12.10.2018 | Brooklyn Steel | Brooklyn, NY 12.12.2018 | Danforth Music Hall | Toronto, Canada 12.13.2018 | The Danforth Music Hall | Toronto, Canada 12.15.2018 | National Arts Centre | Ottawa, Canada 12.16.2018 | Corona Theatre | Montreal, Canada Read More
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Canadian band Stars (Torquil Campbell, Amy Millan, Evan Cranley, Chris Seligman, Patrick McGee, and Chris McCarron) finally back in Minneapolis, in support of their new single “Are You With Me?”, taken from their latest album There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light (2017). The First Avenue show marked the band’s return to the Twin Cities since their 2014 tour for No One Is Lost .
My Brightest Diamond (keys/guitarist/singer Shara Nova with drummer Jharis Yokley) opened up the show; touring in support of their new record, A Million and One. There’s a few things that made the First Avenue special: (1) this was the first night of Stars’ U.S. tour and (2) A Million and One producer Anthony “The Twilite Zone” Khan (previously produced Gorillaz and Kanye West) was actually in the audience.
It was clear that Shara knew and loved the fact that she’s playing the historic First Avenue stage, in fact, her very first Minneapolis show (in November 15, 2006) was at First Ave, and she mentioned last night, “Some people goes to Jerusalem to pray, someone people come here…” Referring to worshipping the Purple One, Prince.
Since the 2006 tour, she’s been back in Minneapolis a few times, mostly playing the Cedar Cultural Center (with Clare & The Reasons, The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Bello Duo).
We tried to catch her with Neil Gaiman at Fitzgerald Theater in St Paul in November 8, 2014, but couldn’t get tickets. Thankfully, she came back to the area few nights later at Cedar Cultural Center with Dosh and Ghostband (November 17).
For the 2014 tour, she had a bassist (Nathan Lithgow) and drummer (Tim Mulvenna) and we described her music as somewhat like St. Vincent, with weird time signatures, surprising burst of percussion, or odd choice of chamber music… whatever the sound, it’s always interesting.
For this recent 2018 show, Shara is dressed in a gold glittery lamé-ish dress with jacket. She would swap out the jacket with a black cape for dramatic effect for “A Million Pearls”.
MBD started the show with “It’s Me on the Dance Floor”, literally dancing and singing on the dance floor of First Avenue. Some fans were confused, looking at the stage, wondering where the vocals were coming from - until a light shown Shara.
The whole show felt more like an art performance, complete with dance sequences. I think my personal favorite is for the penultimate song, “I Have Never Loved Someone”, which was done almost like a carpella. This really showcased Shara’s beautiful vocals. Although that was my favorite, it would seem everyone else loved her set closer, “White Noise”, in which Shara described it as, “A song about my whiteness” and did some funky, funky white dance moves.
As for Stars, you guys already know that I love the band since Nightsongs in 2001. I got into Le Grand Magistery Records and bought almost everything that they released, including Baxendale, Momus, Stereo Total, etc. I was listening to Stars since their humble beginning, but unfortunately, the band really didn’t do heavy promotion until Set Yourself on Fire in 2004 to 2005.
Sure, the group toured for Heart in 2003, but I believe their first time in Minneapolis was at the now-defunct 400 Bar with Apostle of Hustle in March 2005 (you can see the setlist I stole here).
Since 2005, I’ve seen the band on and off for many years, always hoping they’d play those early Nightsongs, but eventually I’ve just come to accept that they’ve evolved into a different band with a different sound (in fact, Nightsongs didn’t even include Amy Millan or Patrick Mcgee to the roster). As I’ve said previously, I still love their music, old and new.
Coming on the First Avenue stage to Shirley Bassey’s “Reach for the Stars”, the band was clearly excited to start performing their set. Usually first night of the tour, a band may be still working out the kinks of their show, but there were no problems with Stars’ show. This is possibly because the band had already played a few Canadian shows, leading up to First Avenue.
Setlist for this 2018 tour will mostly be the same. For our show, you can see that new song, “Wanderers” was handwritten in, and for the encore, based on fans’ choices, “Midnight Coward” was unique to our show. The other two encore songs, “The Loose Ends Will Make Knots” and “No One Is Lost” will likely be standard encore songs for the remainder of the tour.
If you’ve ever seen Stars in concert, you know that singer Torquil Campbell can be very animated, dancing and emoting and singing out his heart. The first time I saw him do this, in 2005, I was so very surprised, because listening to their songs from the recording studios, you do not get the impression that these songs were to be violently danced to.
Before “14 Forever”, a song that the band rarely played live, Torquil reminded us why he loves playing Minneapolis, with an outburst of “My mom and dad f**** here, you know. And I love the Replacements!” Later on in the set, Torquil mentioned how much he loved First Avenue, and told us about the time they met Prince back stage: “That f***king badass said that this was Prince’s stage. And when you go on stage, you have to give it as much as I have given it.” Not only did they have Prince’s blessing, but anyone can play, but only give it their best.
There were some obvious crowd favorites, you can always tell when the audience takes over and sings or finish the songs. Those were near the end, with “Dead Hearts” and set closer “Your Ex-Lover Is Dead”.
“Your Ex-Lover Is Dead” was interesting, because Torquil said that although this was an old song (from 2004), the band had to re-record it for some project and changing some parts of the song. Essentially, it came down to that Stars were doing a cover of a Stars song. Still, people recognized the song and helped finish it.
It’s been a few years, but always glad to have Stars back in the city. If you decide to go see Stars on this tour, know that for every dollar from their ticket sale, it goes to Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal (for Canada) and Honor the Earth (for US). Stars’ There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light is out now. Recently Heart was re-issued for the first time on vinyl. You can pick up all their albums on vinyl at the show.
My Brightest Diamond (keys/guitarist/singer Shara Nova with drummer Jharis Yokley) opened up the show; touring in support of their new record, A Million and One. There’s a few things that made the First Avenue special: (1) this was the first night of Stars’ U.S. tour and (2) A Million and One producer Anthony “The Twilite Zone” Khan (previously produced Gorillaz and Kanye West) was actually in the audience.
It was clear that Shara knew and loved the fact that she’s playing the historic First Avenue stage, in fact, her very first Minneapolis show (in November 15, 2006) was at First Ave, and she mentioned last night, “Some people goes to Jerusalem to pray, someone people come here…” Referring to worshipping the Purple One, Prince.
Since the 2006 tour, she’s been back in Minneapolis a few times, mostly playing the Cedar Cultural Center (with Clare & The Reasons, The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Bello Duo).
We tried to catch her with Neil Gaiman at Fitzgerald Theater in St Paul in November 8, 2014, but couldn’t get tickets. Thankfully, she came back to the area few nights later at Cedar Cultural Center with Dosh and Ghostband (November 17).
For the 2014 tour, she had a bassist (Nathan Lithgow) and drummer (Tim Mulvenna) and we described her music as somewhat like St. Vincent, with weird time signatures, surprising burst of percussion, or odd choice of chamber music… whatever the sound, it’s always interesting.
For this recent 2018 show, Shara is dressed in a gold glittery lamé-ish dress with jacket. She would swap out the jacket with a black cape for dramatic effect for “A Million Pearls”.
MBD started the show with “It’s Me on the Dance Floor”, literally dancing and singing on the dance floor of First Avenue. Some fans were confused, looking at the stage, wondering where the vocals were coming from - until a light shown Shara.
The whole show felt more like an art performance, complete with dance sequences. I think my personal favorite is for the penultimate song, “I Have Never Loved Someone”, which was done almost like a carpella. This really showcased Shara’s beautiful vocals. Although that was my favorite, it would seem everyone else loved her set closer, “White Noise”, in which Shara described it as, “A song about my whiteness” and did some funky, funky white dance moves.
As for Stars, you guys already know that I love the band since Nightsongs in 2001. I got into Le Grand Magistery Records and bought almost everything that they released, including Baxendale, Momus, Stereo Total, etc. I was listening to Stars since their humble beginning, but unfortunately, the band really didn’t do heavy promotion until Set Yourself on Fire in 2004 to 2005.
Sure, the group toured for Heart in 2003, but I believe their first time in Minneapolis was at the now-defunct 400 Bar with Apostle of Hustle in March 2005 (you can see the setlist I stole here).
Since 2005, I’ve seen the band on and off for many years, always hoping they’d play those early Nightsongs, but eventually I’ve just come to accept that they’ve evolved into a different band with a different sound (in fact, Nightsongs didn’t even include Amy Millan or Patrick Mcgee to the roster). As I’ve said previously, I still love their music, old and new.
Coming on the First Avenue stage to Shirley Bassey’s “Reach for the Stars”, the band was clearly excited to start performing their set. Usually first night of the tour, a band may be still working out the kinks of their show, but there were no problems with Stars’ show. This is possibly because the band had already played a few Canadian shows, leading up to First Avenue.
Setlist for this 2018 tour will mostly be the same. For our show, you can see that new song, “Wanderers” was handwritten in, and for the encore, based on fans’ choices, “Midnight Coward” was unique to our show. The other two encore songs, “The Loose Ends Will Make Knots” and “No One Is Lost” will likely be standard encore songs for the remainder of the tour.
If you’ve ever seen Stars in concert, you know that singer Torquil Campbell can be very animated, dancing and emoting and singing out his heart. The first time I saw him do this, in 2005, I was so very surprised, because listening to their songs from the recording studios, you do not get the impression that these songs were to be violently danced to.
Before “14 Forever”, a song that the band rarely played live, Torquil reminded us why he loves playing Minneapolis, with an outburst of “My mom and dad f**** here, you know. And I love the Replacements!” Later on in the set, Torquil mentioned how much he loved First Avenue, and told us about the time they met Prince back stage: “That f***king badass said that this was Prince’s stage. And when you go on stage, you have to give it as much as I have given it.” Not only did they have Prince’s blessing, but anyone can play, but only give it their best.
There were some obvious crowd favorites, you can always tell when the audience takes over and sings or finish the songs. Those were near the end, with “Dead Hearts” and set closer “Your Ex-Lover Is Dead”.
“Your Ex-Lover Is Dead” was interesting, because Torquil said that although this was an old song (from 2004), the band had to re-record it for some project and changing some parts of the song. Essentially, it came down to that Stars were doing a cover of a Stars song. Still, people recognized the song and helped finish it.
It’s been a few years, but always glad to have Stars back in the city. If you decide to go see Stars on this tour, know that for every dollar from their ticket sale, it goes to Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal (for Canada) and Honor the Earth (for US). Stars’ There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light is out now. Recently Heart was re-issued for the first time on vinyl. You can pick up all their albums on vinyl at the show.
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My Brightest Diamond |
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Stars at First Avenue, Minneapolis (02 Dec 2018) |
