I feel I've been in a bit of a lull with concert-going as of late so the invasion of overseas pop at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern this past Thursday with Sweden's The Concretes and Australia's New Buffalo was very welcome. Sally Seltmann, aka New Buffalo opened up the show quite nicely. Coincidence or not but New Buffalo's quiet, stripped-down, folky-popisms reminded me of another solo artist who goes by a stage name, that artist being Chan Marshall aka Cat Power. New Buffalo was more melodically straighforward perhaps. While Sally utilized different instrumentation from song to song, going from guitar, to keyboards, and even utilizing drum machine beats, there was a cohesiveness to her sound held together by the memorable pop melodies and Sally's fragile voice. She even performed a great cover of Crowded House's "Four Seasons In One Day". I noticed Kevin and Brendan BSS in attendance, but was that Leslie with them also? I was initially hesitant about New Buffalo's addition to the Arts & Crafts roster, but having seen her live, I think she's more than proved herself worthy. I even recall Kevin raising his glass and swaying his arm in approval.Since The Concretes last played in Toronto at Lee's Palace in October 2004, it's felt like an eternity waiting for them to come back. In actuality I'd only purchased their self-titled disc back in March of 2005 and hadn't given it much of listen over the months, but on the strength of songs like "Say Something New", "Warm Night" and "You Can't Hurry Love", I was utterly convinced of their goodness. I've also been enjoying their most recent album "In Colour", and while I find it a little less threatening compared to the first album, it still pleases the pop fan in me.
The eight-member pop band strolled onto stage wearing a mostly white wardrobe, with The Concretes lead vocalist Victoria wearing an outfit that reminded me how a librarian or office worker might dress in the 70's. Overall, there was something very ABBA-esque about their mostly white wardrobe. Kitschy but it worked. Humourously, Victoria made reference to the awful smell that somehow invaded the Horseshoe(I knew I wasn't imagining that) and said that it wasn't the band but it must be something or someone out in the audience. She mentioned that to compensate for the smell, the band were wearing alot of perfume/cologne and Victoria brought out a candle. Whether that helped or not, the odour seemed to disipate as the band's set played on. Honestly, sometimes The Concretes had all the energy of a highschool chess club but if you looked closely you could see that the band was into it in their own introverted little way. Fortunately, for what ever extrovertedness the band lacked overall, they made up for it with their charm and at least made a little bit of effort to come out of their shells. Although I couldn't quite make out everything Victoria was saying, she did however manage to speak up between songs every now and then. When she mentioned that it was hot in the place, someone yelled out that She was Hot. Thank God for dark lighting; I could almost make out her blushing. But that's the band, and particularly, Victoria's charm; she's one of the most unlikely individuals I'd expect to front a band but she does it fine in her own special way. At one point, the band even managed to squeeze out a noisy jam. Mostly, the band stuck to what they did best, which was to perform a tight set of their sparkling indiepop.
In celebration of Victoria's 29th birthday, The Concretes drummer Lisa Milberg(who had come up during the encore to sing a song) lead the audience in a rendition of "Happy Birthday" to the embarassment of Victoria as she strolled onto the stage, crouched down on the floor at the foot of Lisa and clung to her legs. After that, a tall, lanky gent from the horn section came and presented Victoria with a bouqet of flowers as the audience went 'Awwww!'. Maintaining the sing-a-long atmosphere of the just sung "Happy Birthday", the band ended the encore and the night on the waltz-ian "Warm Night" as the audience eventually joined in on the song's "La La La La La" chorus. Pure joy.
[photos from the show]
Chromewaves has his review and photos of the show.
No comments:
Post a Comment