Broken Social Scene : Amazing
Last night was truely an awsome night. It’s kinda difficult to pin Broken Social Scene down, they are a network of artists based in Canada, at their most expansive are a massive group of collaborators and a core group of artists in their compact version. Through Kings of Convenince I got to Feist and through Fiest I got to BSS, so probably not typical of much of their fanbase, I guess. Anyway when I say compact I’m talking nine people on the tiny stage of the Academy2, someone slipped of the stage too it was a porrly lit night and was a squish in every sense of the word.
No support band left the the crowd anxious for the set that started at 9pm and finished at 11pm, there were some very young members in the crowd and I once again felt old, 10 years too old. I thought I recogonised a few people though. I realised that I only actually know about 10% of BSS’s discography, it was the two albums “Feel Good Lost” and “You Forget It In People” that introduced me, but that didn’t matter I was seriously impressed with how tight their sound is and how well they work as a group.
Nine in number the group would rearrange to take different roles on various tracks and talk to the crowd while they retuned, most tunes were full of energy and some were really blissed out and chilled. With two drum kits, various brass instruments, bass, pleanty of guitars, a little synth, many microphones with many vocals, a violin, and the cutest female vocalist ever, their sound was extremly powerful, very melodic and so beatuiful.
Couple of highlights I remember quite well, not sure what the songs were but they played a couple of new ones I think. Everyone knew the likes of “Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl” and “KC”. Even if I didn’t know some of the track it was really accessible stuff. The set concluded with the lead male vocalist wading over the barrier into the crowd to hug people and he had said something along the lines of “this song will be pumping your heart while you are dying” .. which I though was an amazingly powerful thing to say