At one point during The Sadies show at Lee's Palace on Friday Night, an audience member cheekily asked for the band to play something he recognized. I'll fess up that I'm not that familiar with their musical(I only have their album "Tremendous Efforts"), but I've seen them a couple of times live, as well as a couple of times as Neko Case's backing band to get a sense of the band's capabilities. While I thought my unfamiliarity of their songs might hinder my enjoyment of the show, such unfamiliarity turned out to be inconsequential. If The Sadies accomplished anything that night, they proved that they are the most versatile rock n'roll band in Toronto. Yes, you read correctly. Rock n' roll. They wore their country influences on their sleeve(right down to Travis Good's Gram Parsons-styled suit) but with the multitude of guests in tow that night, they displayed a rock n' roll energy which was truly undeniable.The first part of the show was basically The Sadies show which I've seen in the past and hence familiar with. With guest appearances from The Good Brothers(Travis and Dallas' Dad and uncle) and the brothers' mother, The Sadies performed a down home country set that displayed their mother's lovely vocals. It was all fine and dandy although I think I'd have been disappointed if the whole show like this. Of course, The Sadies upped the tempo a bit with their own twangy surfy instrumentals. Fans swelled with glee when The Band's Garth Hudson took the stage. Kelly Hogan added a little country-boogie flavour to the set when she lended her vocals.
It's really with the second part of the show that things started to pick up steam. Heavy Trash's Jon Spencer proved that he has one of the most commanding voices in rock n' roll music, setting the stage for what was to come with his now-distinguishable Blues Explosion-esque vocals. The other Jon that night, The Mekons' Jon Langford, performed a string of cow-punk tunes that rocked out as much, if not more than unstoppable Jon Spencer. A couple of Deadly Snakes infused their own dirty rock n'roll vocals into the set. Things settled a little into some alt-country-pop territory with sets featuring the Blue Rodeo guys(Greg, Jim and Bazil) and Bob Egan(on slide guitar), then The Jayhawks' Gary Louris. Greg Keelor returned to the stage with Rick White to perform a set with The Sadies as their alter-ego, the cosmic, space-rock of The Unintended. Saving the best for last possibly, Neko Case came out towards the end to lend her vocals. Most touching point of the night was to hear the brothers Good's dad say how proud he was of his boys. Funniest moment goes to Jon Langford, well for basically everything he said, and for the dirty things he did with his guitar at the end of his last song with The Sadies. ;-) Musical highlight of the night(and for that matter, every Sadies show I've been to) was when The Sadies and the gang ran through their now familiar and totally raucous cover of "Loved On Look", complete with the "shoop, shoop...shoop, shoop."
If I had one disappointment, it was that there was just not enough Neko in the set, although luckily during the encore The Sadies came up with another great song(anyone know the name of that?) that featured Neko which totally made the night and made the encore all the more worthwhile. In all, this show(1st set, intermission, 2nd set, encore) ran close to four hours. In some cases, this might be overkill, but in The Sadies case this was a special night filled with special friends and gracious fans. I can't wait for the live album. [photos from the show]
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chromewaves has a thorough review and photos from the Friday show.
suckingalemon has a review and photos from The Sadies' Saturday(February 4th) show.
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