Toronto – Things overheard on the bus ride and walk to the venue:
“So where is the Docks anyways?” “Just follow the crowd.” “But no one in the crowd knows where we’re going”
As “the crowd” passed by a Cirque du Soleil tent:
“Cirque du Soleil’s playing? I’d much rather see them than Silversun Pickups.”
Ouch.
So by the time I finally make it to the Sound Academy, openers An Horse were already playing. They had a good sound – upbeat, poppy stuff. I think they’ll be opening for Tegan and Sara, which makes sense as they have a similar sensibility. There’s maybe also a hint of Matt and Kim in their sound, but that might just be a case of me making a lazy comparison to another two piece band.
Up next was Cage The Elephant, who reminded the crowd several times that they were from Kentucky. Hometown pride, I guess. I knew nothing about them before this show, but I did recognize their song ,”Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked,” not because I had heard them do it before, but because some kid on the bus was singing it to get himself all stoked for the show. They were alright, had a bit of a garage rock influence at times.
Silversun Pickups impressed me. The Los Angeles band was here touring in promotion of their album Swoon, which was released in April to generally favorable reviews. They’re a pretty tight live band and yeah, they do certainly sound like Smashing Pumpkins. Lead singer Brian Aubert’s got a high voice too. I’m not judging, just sayin’. High voice. He also bears an uncanny resemblance to Daniel Faraday from Lost. This resemblance started distracting me a bit as I was expecting him to say things like “Whatever happened, happened” or “You can’t change the future.” Sadly, he did not say anything like this. He did, however, mention that Toronto always makes them “feel really, really good” or something to that effect. So we’ve got that going for us.
Take that, Cirque du Soleil!