Broken Social Scene
I’ve mapped out concerts for each day of the Olympics, but have taken each day as it comes, see who is available and what they wish to do, and how the mood strikes me to decide what I end up doing. But I had a star in my agenda for “Special Surprise show” at the Ontario House for a while.
When I saw on twitter that it was Broken Social Scene, I jumped out of the house and went straight there. To my shock, at 3:30 pm on the Saturday, there was NO LINE to get into the venue (instead, everyone was lined up for the 4D movie and every other pavilion). No line for the bar, reasonable priced food, $6 beer, free concert, and 5 huge screens to view all the sports? I was in heaven.
The Olympic experience for me has been very Broken Social Scene-ish. Every day, it’s a different assortment of friend’s, acquaintances, events and venues. It’s the joy of doing it that brings you together coming back day after day with a different cast of characters and acquaintances.
Waiting nearly 6 hours for a concert sounds terrible, but it’s not. You make a few new friends chewing the fat with complete strangers as you wait. Even Gordon Campbell walked through and met some folks. Plus, it’s a bar, not a line.
I txted everyone I knew to get down there, but they closed the doors at 5ish I believe, not letting anyone else in – weird, there was ton of space. But then it came clear to me, they still needed to do sound check. This certainly built anticipation for the people in the know about who was coming, as about a hundred of us waited in the back of the bar watching Olympic events.
As for the show, just to clear up a couple of rumours:
• The blonde girl was not Emily Haines from Metric, it’s their current (and cuter) female lead singer Lisa Lobsinger.
• The brunette girl was not Feist, it was Julie Doirin (former bassist from Eric’s Trip).
• For once, Broken Social Scene played a phenomenal show in Vancouver, its true!
I was right up against the stage until needing the bathroom right near the end of the set. I was so close I could lean over and take a picture of the crazy peddle setups. For a larger show in a larger venue, it felt more intimate than Sloan’s Atlantic House concert that housed maybe 250 people. The event didn’t have a mosh pit and people scrapping it out for space, which many of the free shows have turned into (including a mosh pit for Bedoiun Soundclash, who’d thunk that?) Just a great vibe, and great timing as I just finished reading “This Book is Broken” a few months ago.
While I have a tough time putting sound into words, I hope these pictures and video satisfy your curiosity.
(Sorry for some double pics here, still learning how the Gallery works in WordPress)
-
- Kids on tank singing Canadian National Anthem
-
- Night cap beers under Giant U2 poster board
-
- Broken Social Scene
Set list (very much a Best of, with little new material):
• Superconnected
• 7/4
• Backed Out
• Churches Under the Stairs
• Love is New
• Stars and Sons
• Out on the Weekend
• Anthems For a 17 Year Old Girl
• Flives
• Sweetest
• (Some song by Julie Doirin)
• It’s All Gonna Break
• Encore: Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.
Kevin James (and many Olympic performers) have been told, no encore. He came out to reiterate that point, and when the crowd still wouldn’t leave, he broke into a cappella version of U2’s Still Haven’t Found what I’m Looking For.
How perfect did the evening play out? Afterwards, it was drinks on the town with a couple of my best friends. As I walked out, I passed a tank at the Armoury with kids climbing all over it. And my beer night cap, I’m at the Irish Heather under a 20 foot wide U2 War poster.
Kids on tank singing Canadian National Anthem
Night cap beers under Giant U2 poster board
The universe ties itself together and takes care of its young social scenes.
Chad's Adventures 
Leave a comment