Your Cover's Blown

concert review: Belle and Sebastian and The New Pornographers @ The Docks(Toronto, Ontario), February 25, 2006

Having seen Belle and Sebastian three times live before(Kool Haus - May 8 2002, Indio CA @ Coachella - May 2004, San Diego @ Spreckles Theatre - May 2004), part of me regrets skipping B&S' last show in Toronto at Massey Hall in November 2004. I just had to go this time, even if it meant having to bear the notoriously crappy Toronto music venue, The Docks. Really, nothing's changed sinced the first(and only) time I was there when I saw Interpol back in October 2004. Rather than this whole post become an extended rant on The Docks, let's just say sightlines were bad, it was crowded, and efforts to get any decent spot were mostly futile. of course, it didn't really help that my friend and I got there just when The New Pornographers were starting their set.

To state the obvious, if Neko and Dan were there, The New Pornographers set would have been better. But only slightly. Let's give Carl Newman and the rest of the gang some credit. While Kathryn Calder's voice lacked the twanginess of Neko's, Kathyrn still had the range to pull off Neko's vocal parts admirably; that is when she wanted to. At times, Kathryn sort of held back on her vocals but her singing came off best when she really projected like on "Mass Romantic" and "Sing Me Spanish Techno". I'm hoping in the future, that Kathryn might come out from behind the keyboard and take centre stage to sing some songs. Oh, and Kathryn cut off her hair. She still looks mighty cute, but I miss the way she looked before. I have to admit that if the NP's setlist[courtesy of suckingalemon] wasn't as superb as it was, I'd probably be bored of them; there was a lack of any stage banter for the most part, and they're pretty laid back on stage. So while I didn't really miss Neko's vocals too much, you can always depend on Neko to tell a good story or two.

I think the law of averages expresses that a good fifty per cent of the time, there'll always be someone taller than you standing in front of you at a concert. For the record, this time around it was more like seventy-five per cent of the time. All I could really do was suck it up, accept it and try to enjoy the music. While Belle and Sebastian now have a good back catalogue to pull songs from, it is inevitable that they'd not perform alot of everyone's favourite songs; for me, that meant they didn't perform any of my favourites from their album "The Boy With The Arab Strap". That aside there was still alot in the setlist to enjoy. The setlist stuck mostly with upbeat tunes, avoiding most of what Stuart at one point would refer to as their 'bedroom' songs. They did open their set with the quiet indiepop of old favourite "Stars and Track Of Field", then changed tempos with the sixties jangle of "Another Sunny Day", the bounce of "A Woman's Realm" and the funky "Sukie In The Graveyard". Other than the majestic beauty of "Fox In The Snow" midway through the set and the quiet first half of "Judy and The Dream of Horses" at the end of the set, Belle and Sebastian were doing their best version of rocking out.

I think the performance lacked spontaneity for the most part, and efforts towards stage banter sorta tanked. Those facts alone made this show my least favourite of theirs I've seen. One shining moment of spontaneity was when Stuart brought up a girl named Andrea onstage to sing "Act of Apostle II". The story goes that the same girl was at their Massey Hall show in 2004 and sang with them onstage. Soonafter she moved to Glasgow, befriended the band, and coincidentally is now living back in Toronto. Stuart knew that she was in the audience and brought her up onstage for a pretty rendition of "Act of Apostle II". I could forgive Andrea for being somewhat off-key at times since apparently Andrea and B&S had never tried this before. At the very least it was endearing.

At the end of their encore(which included "Me And The Major" and "Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying"), it had been almost two hours into the show. Even before the encore, there were already people walking out. Unfortunately, I think I felt like I had enough too, although I stayed until it was over. Blah, blah, blah, yes The Docks suck but I can't blame that entirely for my overall dissatisfaction with the show. The songs were awesome but the performance was a bit underwhelming. A little more spontaneity and I think I would have enjoyed B&S' set more. Oh well that's what we get for being the first date on their US/Canada tour.

Obviously I didn't(well couldn't) take any photos but suckingalemon and chromewaves did.

Update: I've been reading some positive reviews of the show and I've rethought some of my original comments. I didn't mean to give the impression that B&S put on a bad show. On the contrary, I thought it was a good show, just not the best one I've seen. For the record, I was bobbing my head for many of their uptempo tunes. I'm glad that those of you up front enjoyed the show, some immensely. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I was up front too. What I was hoping for was that B&S would transcend the limitations of The Docks so that even us not up front would still feel like we'd had an awesome time. I've been to shows at large venues where I was not front row(eg. B&S @ Kool Haus, Wilco @ Massey Hall, U2 at Exhibition Place, Pixies @ Arrow Hall) and still enjoyed the show immensely. I was hoping for the same with B&S this time, but it just didn't happen. It's probably unfair for me to think that B&S could transcend the limitations of The Docks. The venue is a toughy. suckingalemon in the comments, mentioned I may have not heard some of the stage banter and that's very possible. What I perceived as a lack of spontaneity on B&S' part may have been possibly due to me missing some or much of their stage banter. Also, from being way back, I also couldn't sense the energy and enthusiasm that the band was likely exuding. For those in the front rows, I'll take your word that it was a great show. I merely had a good time. Next time I'll be lining up early.