The title of The Trashcan Sinatras' most popular single "Obscurity Knocks" was befitting as the band made their long-awaited return to Toronto since playing the city back in 1993. The band, in retrospect, seemed to have gotten lost in the shuffle in the 90's, never fitting into the grunge movements and britpop scene during the decade. The Trash Can Sinatras were very much progenitors of the Scottish tradition of pop music, sounding like a cross between Aztec Camera and The Smiths. My first experience of their music was back in the early 90's when I heard their track "Obscurity Knocks" on a cassette compilation which I think was called "Just Say Yes To Excess". The song was just such a breath of fresh air back then, full of ringing guitars, joyous vocals, and buoyant pop melodies. I've purchased their CD's over the years but have been neglecting their CD's lately, which I must admit. So to have the Scots come back Toronto after so long was such exciting news that I was not about to let the opportunity to see them live pass me by.
For whatever reason, original opener and fellow Scotsman, Roddy Hart, did not perform and another band called The Long Knives took the opening slot. I only caught maybe three or four songs but I pretty much got the gist of their music from that. Their music had elements of glam and brit-pop, and with the band's brash guitars and androgynous vocals, reminded me of bands such as Suede and Placebo. On certain days, I might dig 'em but my mind was really only set on seeing the headliners that night.
Of course, just waiting for The Trash Can Sinatras to make their entrance seemed like forever. Not knowing what the band looked like, I hadn't realized that it was some of the members of the band who had come on to the stage to do their own equipment checks. When the band finally made their official entrance onto the stage, they received a warm Toronto welcome from the crowd. I had my spot right up near the front of the stage and periodic glances over my shoulder showed that Lee's Palace wasn't entirely full. Of course, there was a good amount of people there but it would have been nice to have sold out the night. I read that the band had sold out a Los Angeles performance on a previous mini-tour before this current tour. I would have hoped Toronto could have done the same. Oh well. Neverless, me and the rest of the crowd there that night, ate up everything the band gave to us. The music pretty much alternated between upbeat buoyant pop songs and more sombre sounding ones. As I mentioned, the band continues in the footsteps of its Scottish cousins Aztec Camera quite nicely, with hints of The Smiths thrown in for good measure; "Leave Me Alone", for example, off "Weightlifting", just screams The Smiths' "Heaven, Knows I'm Miserable Now", especially in the vocals. What I also found quite surprisingly was that the band has an ever-so-subtle hint of soul music, especially in the some of the guitar arrangements. The band's music is quite danceable during upbeat guitar-pop songs like "Bloodrush", as evidenced by me and others near the front of the stage dancing (ok, maybe what I was doing wasn't 'dancing' per se, but it was close). "Obscurity Knocks" was the one song everyone wanted to hear and when the band left the stage after their encore, for a second, I didn't think the band were going to come back. I kept on thinking(and I don't think I was alone) that there's no way in hell the band comes to Toronto for the first time in 11 years and gets away with out playing their 'hit'. So the crowd was adamant that the band come back for a second encore, and our applause and shouting was pretty constant for a good 3-4 minutes before the band came back on stage for their second encore and finally played "Obscurity Knocks". Anything else after that was gravy; the fact of the matter is I don't even remember anything after "Obscurity Knocks" but it really didn't matter. Now let's hope the lads don't take another 11 years to come back.[see my photos here.]
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