The Brunettes are a fun New Zealand indiepop band who started off the night with a totally charming set. If I remember correctly there were three gents and three women in the band playing a wide range of instruments from the conventional guitar, bass guitar, drums to saxophone. xylophone, melodica, cello, claves, and castanets. They played a very loose, casual set of pop music, at various times touching on country music, soul(as on the horns-embellished "The Record Store"), and indiepop(as in the chipper "Boyracer"). I think I most enjoyed watching the band's enthusiasm on stage, especially the girl with the long brown hair and striped black and white stockings who always had the biggest grin on her face and was continually bouncing along to the pop-tastic grooves. Towards the end of the set the band sang a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen-inspired(or was that just Ashley Olsen inspired?) song, and for the performance donned masks featuring the image of the celebrity. Goofy but lovable. The Shins came up next and played an inspired set of pop tunes culled from "Oh, Inverted World" and "Chutes Too Narrow". They also played a spiffy cover of The Magnetic Fields' "Strange Powers". Considering the enormity of the venue and that apparently the last time they played in Toronto they played to at most a hundred people, I was totally surprised how confident the band came across on stage. They were musically on target, never missing a beat or note, and they managed to convert the spaciousness of the Kool Haus into something much more intimate. I was fortunate enough to get a decent view of the stage about three rows back, just to the right of the stage, and for the entirety of The Shins' set I was fixated on the band's presence never really aware of how large the crowd behind me was. My favourite song is of course "New Slang" and the band transformed it into something more majestic-sounding, substituting keyboards for a certain guitar arrangement in the song. They played another favourite of mine "Girl On The Wing" as their second song in their 3-song encore, singing the infectiously catchy chorus "Before we take this ride and let it slide, Into the cracks where fall and winter collide" with an undeniable punchiness. The Beat-sounding "So Says I" was also a lot of fun. These examples aside, it was all terrific in my opinion. Oh, and I did appreciate the "comedic stylings" of The Shins' Marty Crandall. He kept the vibe pretty loose with his funny remarks. Funny thing is he physically reminded me Chris Parnell of SNL. Now if Marty broke out into a Chris Parnell-style rap(yes Chris Parnell, surprisingly has good flow...for a comedian), that would have been funny. [photos from the show]
In other news, Magnolia Electric Co. return to Canada for a series of live dates, including Toronto. Venues still TBA but the dates are as follows[info from Kork]:
8-2 - London, ON
8-3 - Waterloo, ON
8-4 - Hamilton, ON
8-5 - Toronto, ON
8-6 - Ottawa, ON
8-7 - Montreal, QC
8-8 - Quebec City, QC
8-9 - Fredericton, NB
8-10 - Monckton, NB
8-11 - Halifax, NB
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