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.
