Said the Whale had a darn near full house for their Mod Club gig and looked pretty happy about it. The dual lead male vocals are a huge advantage for the 5 piece, and their female keyboardist rounds them out nicely. Hopefully not a smug reflection on Toronto from this Vancouver band, they opened with This City's a Mess before a non-album cut in Love is Art. Actually there would prove to be a great deal of unfamiliar songs played as they debuted a large number of new songs from an as-yet unreleased album. (From my perspective, having never seen them before, I would argue a few too many bumping my favourite Out on the Shield.) The new stuff sounded decent, with some clap-alongs and sing-alongs (if only for repetition). However there was a standout from the bearded and chapeau-ed singer, whom I prefer, in the very uniquely paced Hurricane Aida. Otherwise it was great to hear Camillo, and dance to The Light is You. They also did the quieter Holly, Ontario, Black Day in December, Emerald Lake, AB, and False Creek Change amongst others. In finale was the appropriate Goodnight Moon that starts slow and sweet but saw the backing crew from Hollerado crash the stage for the closing clashes.
For their encore they asked to play two new songs and who were we to say no? Following these we were asked to stay real quiet for a somewhat uncommon live version of Curse of the Currents. It is quite the song and even though the rumble from the downstairs club was impossible to fully ignore it still carried great weight and was a stirring ending to a complete show.
Rah Rah did a helluva job opening too.
Sarah Lowe opened with just herself and a piano (okay, keyboard tuned to piano). You have to cut her slack for not hauling a piano from Manchester, and the Toronto crowd, as we're apt to do, did do just that and welcomed her warmly. The show was somewhat lackluster as the majority of solo performances are, and it didn't help that she kept telling us to imagine the six musicians that normally fill it out. Despite this her voice is rather lovely and the songs nice enough.
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