The Canadians have quite a vibrant indie scene and Broken Social Scene is probably the best thing to come out of this.

Two Mondays ago, I had the chance to see them for the first time in Heaven, which is the name of the venue near Charing Cross.

I find the new album, Forgiveness Rock Record, incredibly engrossing and from the moment I first heard World Sick, I immediately fell in love with this record. Do yourself a huge favor and try to listen to this record, it’s beautiful.

Also, from what I’ve heard, watching Broken Social Scene live is one of the most amazing things you’ll ever get to see on stage. And boy, was I not disappointed.

Support for the evening was a band called Timber Timbre, who played long pieces which sounded quite surreal but very interesting nonetheless. They’re Canadian as well.

At this point, there was hardly anyone in the venue so I was able to position myself right in front.

By the time Broken Social Scene was set to play, the venue got quite packed behind me although the space directly in front of the stage was allowed you to move and dance quite easily.

After a 30+ minute set, it was time for them to go. Another 30 minutes after, Broken Social Scene was finally up on stage and kicked off the evening with World Sick.

In typical Broken Social Scene fashion, there was no shortage in guests. There was Gordon Moakes, Spiral Stairs, and a brass band from Brighton. Sadly, there was surprise appearance from Feist and Emily Haines of Metric.

This was then followed by an older song, Stars and Sons with special guest Gordon Moakes of Bloc Party as an additional bassist.

A song dedicated to the BP oil spill came up next, Texico Bitches, with extra vocals from Scott “Spiral Stairs” of Pavement.

7/4 (Shoreline) was next which is an old favorite. At this point, the lovely Lisa Lobsinger (totally wicked name, right?) walked back on stage to help out with the vocals. She is part of Broken Social Scene and not a guest but is not always on the stage but struts back and forth when female vocals are needed on stage. She has the most awesome hair though and was simply fantastic when she took on the lead for All To All.

Ungrateful Little Father was an enjoyable funky song which was even more fun since Kevin Drew came down to the crowd and started singing from there.

They closed out the evening with an extend version of Meet Me In The Basement which was truly epic in every way. The first time I heard this track on their record, I knew it would be an amazing song to close out the evening and again, I was not disappointed.

Here’s the full setlist.

• World Sick
• Stars And Sons
• Texico Bitches
• 7/4 (Shoreline)
• Fire Eye’d Boy
• Forced To Love
• Art House Director
• Cause = Time
• All To All
• Sweetest Kill
• Late Nineties Bedroom Rock For The Missionaries
• Superconnected
• Water In Hell
• Ungrateful Little Father
• KC Accidental
• Lover’s Spit
• Meet Me in the Basement

To sum things up, Broken Social Scene is really an amazing band to watch live. At no point did they have less than 9 members up on stage shuffling through the different instruments. At times, it seemed too crowded on stage considering that Heaven is a small-ish venue, but not once did it feel like things were out of controlled. Organised chaos as I would want to call it. A party on stage.

Kevin Drew does talk a lot though in between songs though and talked about almost anything from the hung parliament to the BP oil spill and getting everyone to chant “I’m sorry” towards the end of the evening.

He did mention a 3-hour set during their next gig in London at HMV Forum on the 30th of June. I’m so glad I have tickets to that as well.

Oh, wait. That’s next month.

Last year, I had the chance to watch Deftones perform at HMV Forum. This was my first time seeing the band play live, a band I’ve been listening to since 2000, the year I started to listen to nothing but rock. It was one of the best gigs I was able to see last year but sadly, I was not able to blog about it since we moved house.

A month ago, during a time when I was already quite broke, an announcement came in that Deftones would be playing an intimate secret gig in London in support of their new album Diamond Eyes. When the tickets were released, I grabbed my credit card and purchased a ticket right away which was bundled with the new album in MP3 format. There was no way I would have missed this gig.

The queue and wait outside ULU (University of London Union) was quite long and the weather was in the middle of a cold snap. Eventually, we got inside. No sign of any support bands and no merch for sale either.

At 8:30, Deftones came up on stage and the crowd went wild right away kicking off with Rocket Skates followed by Diamond Eyes, two songs released from their new album. With the venue being relatively small and the crowd mostly dedicated fans, there was a lot of singing, screaming and moshing happening.

Then they went old school with tracks from White Pony with Feiticiera, Elite, Knife Party, and Passenger. I think I almost cried in joy when they started playing Knife Party as it is one of my favourite songs from White Pony and was followed by another favourite, Passenger. Go get your knife!

As with most gigs, the exact setlist is a bit hazy now especially after a week with other gigs happening in between. So I am pulling the setlist off Setlist.fm yet again.

• Rocket Skates
• Diamond Eyes
• Feiticeira
• Elite
• Knife Party
• Passenger
• CMND/CTRL
• You’ve Seen The Butcher
• Sextape
• When Girls Telephone Boys
• Minerva
• Birthmark
• Beauty School
• Prince
• Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)
• Around The Fur
• Lotion
• My Own Summer (Shove It)
• Back To School (Mini Maggit)
• Change (In The House Of Flies)
• Root (encore)
• 7 Words (encore)

22 songs in total with a lot of their greatest hits played. The new songs sounded good live but the old ones hit a special place inside me, especially the ones which I’ve only heard live for the first time.

Also, throughout the gig, chants of “Chi Cheng” echoed the venue, the bassist of Deftones who was involved in a car accident back in 2008 and has been in a coma ever since. This was acknowledged by Chino.

The ULU gig was the most intense gig I’ve been to since moving back to London. After the gig, several parts of my body were aching. I’d say bruising but due to my skin colour, it wasn’t that distinct but hurt when you touched those places.

Regardless of the physical pain sustained at this gig, I left with a big grin on my face. That is, until I realized I had work the next day.

It would be foolish to deny that the main reason I listen to She & Him is because of the lead singer which happens to be the lovely Zooey Deschanel which is a Hollywood actress whom you may have heard of in the past.

When I noticed the gig announced on Last.fm, it was already a little too late as tickets were already sold out on most ticketing sites. Luckily, Stargreen still had a few left and of course, I bought a ticket right away.

The venue was Koko yet again but this time I decided to not buy a drink. Instead, I opted to get as close to the stage as possible. Unfortunately, this was also on the mind of every other person in the venue as the area right below the stage was quite packed as I arrived after the doors opened which is rare for me.

Speaking of the crowd, it was predominantly male. Figures.

The Chapin Sisters were the support for the evening who turned out to be pretty good even though they were missing one sister. The two sisters sang by themselves with their instruments for a few songs and was later joined by a band. They were pretty interesting with or without the full band.

For their last song, they invited their third sister for the evening, Zooey Deschanel, and the crowd just went wild (a little and in a calm way).

After a long wait, a person came up on stage and asked the audience not to use flash photography as a special request from the band.

A few minutes after, members of the same band for support came back on stage followed by M. Ward and of course, Zooey Deschanel in a nice silver dress. The Chaplin Sisters were her back up singers this time around. Awfully convenient for the same people to be both the support and headlining band.

Zooey looked absolutely lovely and adorable up on stage. She looked and moved exactly as the many characters she has portrayed in her movies. Surprisingly, she didn’t talk much on stage and was mostly muttering a few words instead. Also, she was looking up most of the time which isn’t really a bad thing but something I noticed.

As for her voice, well, it’s safe to say that she is so much more than just a pretty voice. She can really sing and put on quite a performance. The last song for the evening was a cover of I Put A Spell On You which was simply amazing and jaw dropping. She easily hit all the high notes. This song was even lovelier as only M. Ward was on stage playing the guitar.

Speaking of M. Ward, the other half of She & Him, was mighty as well with his guitar and singing. They had great chemistry on stage which was more evident when it was just the two of them up.

I never remember setlists even the day after a gig so I’m grabbing it again from Setlist.fm created by likelyladtom.

• I Was Made For You
• Thieves
• Black Hole
• Me And You
• Lingering Still
• Sing
• Home
• Change Is Hard
• I Thought I Saw Your Face Today
• Brand New Shoes
• You Really Got A Hold On Me
• Would You Like To Take a Walk? (Ella Fitzgerald cover)
• Magic Trick (M. Ward)
• Gonna Get Along Without You Now
• In The Sun
• Take It Back
• Don’t Look Back
• Over It Over Again
• This Is Not A Test
• Ridin’ In My Car
• Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?
• Sweet Darlin’
• Fool’s Rush In (Johnny Mercer cover) (encore)
• Roll Over Beethoven (Chuck Berry cover) (encore)
• I Put A Spell On You (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins cover) (encore)

Wow. That was just a whopping 25 songs. Albeit short 2-3 minute songs, it’s still a pretty massive setlist. I had no idea they played so many songs that evening.

As mentioned earlier, the main reason for me going here was because of Zooey Deschanel and seeing her was very much worth it. Thing is, she can really sing well and M. Ward compliments this very well with his music. There was never a doubt of me going to this gig as I would have found a way to get tickets. If that failed, I would have purchased tickets to the second date they announced a month after tickets sold out for the Koko gig.

In short, this was a simply an amazing night being star-struck by one of my most favourite actresses and blown away by her amazing voice.

It’s safe to say that I was grinning the whole evening up to the time I put myself to sleep. *sighs*

Aside for the volcanic ash, the month of April was painfully uneventful for me. This is apparent from the lack of blog posts for the month. The Phoenix blog post was written on the 3rd but it happened in March, which doesn’t make it count.

So far, I’ve only updated a few days after a gig and for no other reason other than this.

It is safe to assume then that I did not see any gigs in April. Five weeks without one is quite a stretch since this is my drug. This is my fix.

I was all set and looking forward to see Crystal Castles though on the 20th, but due to the volcanic ash, Crystal Castles has to canceled their gig and re-schedule it for the 19th of this month. This unfortunately is the same date as The New Pornographers at Electric Ballroom which is such a terrible shame. The ticket for Crystal Castles has now been sold to a fan on Last.fm.

A few weeks after, something else happened, my car broke down and had to be repaired. Again. £169 this time around. At the least, it didn’t breakdown while I was on the motorway and I got it back right away.

I did miss a day of work due to this, and we all know how dedicated I am to being at work. In the two and a half years I have worked for Rackspace, this was only the second time I called in about not being able to make it to work. The first was for being sick and this was just for one day.

So, two days where I did not go to work for close to nothing positive. Great.

There was one gem during April though and this was the hiking day trip to Hastings which was an absolute blast since the weather was perfect and the company was great even though I didn’t socialize and talk as much as I wanted to.

Anyway, the month of May seems to be more promising.

This month, we will be seeing 4 gigs starting with the lovely Zooey Deschanel as part of She & Him on the 7th. The following week would be a special gig for Deftones‘ new album, Diamond Eyes, at ULU. Then it’s Canadian supergroup week with Broken Social Scene and The New Pornographers. Crazy does not even begin how amazing this month will be.

This would have been insane as Los Campesinos! was supposed to play on the 20th but totally canceled their gig with no re-schedule date. I think I can settle for crazy.

Aside from this, we will be going to a few hiking trips. The White Cliffs of Dover on the day after She & Him, then a weekend trip to the Lake District. My hiking boots shall be put to good use this month.

With this, May should clearly be a better month than April. Hopefully, the weather will be brilliant when I’m out but this maybe pushing things a bit too far since the weather was great in April.

One thing though, due to the repairs on the car, budget for the month will be a bit tight until payday. Here we go.