sloan
Sloan
Supermarket
Toronto, Ontario
it's that time of year again, canadian music week in toronto. last night I met up with a bunch of cool people to see the murderecords showcase at supermarket in kensington. bands that played were will currie and the country french, pony da look, meligrove band and of course, sloan.
I got to the venue a little before 8pm (doors were supposed to be at 8? however the girl doing doors never showed). I saw ross in line (ross came out from calgary for cmw) so I joined him, there was like 15 other folks waiting for doors (we were originally inside but they made us move outdoors into the cold to wait for the girl doing doors. STUPID.) anyways, mandi/allegra/kevin showed up and we hung out and waited for the show. we ended up getting into the supermarket at like 8.50 or something ridiculous and we were right up front and centre (the stage was tiny, like 3 feet off the ground, no barricades, it was cool. so we hung out for a bit, chatted, feasted on cookies and whatnot
the first band on I hadn't seen or really heard of before (jay's been telling me about them for a while now and I'd only heard their myspace stuff), was will currie and the country french. they were so good! they're all really young and fabulously talented. they played about 40 minutes or so and were really cute and endearing, it was heart warming (after the gig mandi and I went and told them they did a great show and then we told mike [nelson, sloan's manager] that he should have them open for sloan on a regular basis). their songs were awesome, I bought a pin, check out their myspace, I think they'll have a record out on murder soontime
next band up was pony da look (ie, chris murphy's baby mama's band). they were like...honestly I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty bad. I'm trying to think of something nice to say, but srsly it was kind of unenjoyable. their frontwoman was really intense though..like she stared at me a few times and scared the living daylights outta me (I saw her after the gig and she was like "I SAW YOU IN THE FRONT ROW - YOU WERE REALLY INTENSE! I COULD SEE YOUR EYESSSSS" and I was like "uhh same, likewise.." loll) basically it's rebecca mendoza (chris' woman) on drums and then the other three ladies on keyboards. anyways they played like a 40 minute set. the highlight of which was the fact that chris was videotaping the whole thing. he was lurking about at the side/back of the stage (at one point he just walked across the stage, mid-song lol..classtastic). he came up behind mandi and I and was like "yo can I stand in front of you?" so he was hanging around videotaping the ponies. it was kinda HIGH-larious
after that, the next band up was meligrove band. they were fantastic, put on a rockin show, they're really good live. I wasn't super familiar with their catalogue, but it's easy to fall in love with. allegra really likes them, they were good and fun to watch. they played like 40 minutes or so (one thing with this murderecords showcase, they were really on time..like every act went on when they were scheduled to. always appreciated)
next up was sloan. as always, they did a fantastic show. it wasn't your regular sloan gig though, they did 4 new songs from their record due out may/june plus a couple that "hadn't been played since 1994." they opened with stood up/same old flame which was cool cos I've never seen that live (I wish I had a larger memory card for my camera cos I wanted to record the new songs so I couldn't fit those two plus the 4 new ones :( ) the guys' new tunes were pretty cool. I think jay's was my favourite, they were all neat. the set list looked like this:
stood up
same old flame
take good care of the poor boy
believe in me (patrick's new track)
I'm not a kid (chris' new track)
everything you've done wrong
witch's wand (jay's new track)
suppose they close the door
ill placed trust
911 (andrew's new track)
before I do
encore: she says what she means
they played a really good show, the guys were tight, I got to see a lot of songs I haven't seen live before. someone shouted out "PLAY I UNDERSTAND!" and chris said "well, there's a repetitive song!" to which there was a resounding oooooh and laughter.
sloan - believe in me video
sloan - I'm not a kid.. video
sloan - witch's wand video
sloan - 911 video
sloan - she says what she means video (yes, I am aware I have about 3 zillion different copies of this. it's probably my favourite live track cos chris just totally lets loose. in this version, there's a guy called rob up on tambourine, he's like a 10 year+ sloan fan.)
also, I've made the above videos into .mp3's if you'd like to put em on your ipod..right click the following links and choose "save target as.."
believe in me.mp3
I'm not a kid...mp3
witch's wand.mp3
911.mp3
she says what she means.mp3
after the guys finished, I got sound guy ryan (chris' twin! it was worse when they had the same glasses, the two look like brothers but they're not) to fetch me a water which was nice of him. most of the smb crew peaced (ruh showed up later on as did beth and miranda), mandi and I stuck around to say hi to chris. he came out and showed us a new picture of francisco who's getting cuter by the minute (tangent: rebecca is back to her pre-baby weight..you'd never know that woman had a baby a few months ago). we chatted for a bit and then he went to attend to his other loyal fans lol so mandi and I headed out, said words to will currie's band, temple from pony and mike. I didn't get a chance to say hi to jay, but I saw him on his way out.