Airplane Boys - Mod (July 20/14)

With advertising as an early show followed by hours of security lines and DJ sets the crowd was getting impatient, I know I was, and began chanting for the boys. Fortunately the DJ blew a speaker or something around then and the focus shifted to the curtain that had been closed on the full-band set-up behind it. Sure enough it revealed a keyboardist, their elementary school teacher on drums, guitar and bass and the incognito man behind the laptop. Everyone was here for the fronting duo and they didn't disappoint, quickly heating up in their jackets. Dressed all in white Mannie and Jay tore through the first track and quickly began shouting out to their family and friends in the crowd. After all The Airplane Boys are hometown heroes who rarely seem to play here, making this a homecoming of sorts having rhymed off their resume Coachella, O2 Arena and other impressive gigs. Despite that they proudly claimed to still ride the TTC and one of the biggest cheers of the night was in response to the statement "public transit!" There was a great deal of gratitude shown by the band, "Yo, we sold out the mod club!" With obscenely cheap tickets for the quality of the show it didn't cheapen the feat in any way. Mannie admitted to being overwhelmed with emotion, making him forget words, but along with his cohort they played hype men well. It was all positive vibes all night which made for a loose atmosphere. First there was the Toronto love, "All Toronto - we just happen to be from Scarborough" as was a good-sized chunk of the crowd "but this is the best city in the world. North, south, east, west." They went on to list off the big acts coming out of this city recently, hitting mostly the obvious in Drake and The Weeknd, then encouraging us through song to follow our dreams. There was plenty of hand waving and shouts for us to let loose which really started to take effect as the set cruised along. Didn't hurt that Jay was getting down on stage and then in the crowd too, one upped by Mannie who surfed over it. Besides a couple from Alignment, Where You Been, and Brave New World a bunch of the tunes were new to me, making a good case to run home and download the latest Egos and Expectations tape. To close out they used Beau Monde as an opportunity for the many, many Beau Monde guests (crew?) in attendance to join them onstage (as well as a few randoms who climbed up.) In the end they closed it down without encore by having us all bounce and laying it out there. Good vibes - I'll leave you with this All Points Bulletin, Toronto - listen up and appreciate because the APB is out there.