A Monday night concert is sometimes a bit of a hard sell. It was for this reason that I decided to miss the opening act and watch some Monday night TV instead before heading out to see Nada Surf. So instead of catching Dawn Landes and the Hounds, I stayed home and watched Chuck. In a sense, the TV show itself acted as a pretty good opener, since I sort of associate Nada Surf with Chuck creator Josh Schwartz anyways.
I got to Lee’s Palace a few minutes before Nada Surf came on. When they took the stage, they started off strong with “See These Bones” followed by “Whose Authority,” probably the two best songs on their album Lucky. Lead singer Matthew Caws joked that if people were waiting to hear those songs, it might be an early night for them and made it clear that this was not a show in support of Lucky.
Instead, the band was touring in support of their new covers album, If I Had A Hi-Fi. That said, they played plenty of their own songs too, the highlights for me being those first two songs as well as “Your Legs Grow.” As far as covers go, my favourite of those was a version of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy The Silence,” not because it was the most recognizable of the tunes they played, but because they actually reinterpreted it slightly, changing the melody and tempo up a bit. Definitely the best cover of that song I’ve ever heard and I’ve heard a few.
A few things I noticed during their set: Matthew Caws changes guitars a lot. I noticed the guitar tech passing him a guitar for almost every second song. I understand his reasons for doing so, but still, it seemed a bit distracting at times. Also, bassist Daniel Lorca, with his head full of giant blonde dreads, looks more like he should be playing in Sepultura than Nada Surf, but that’s neither here nor there.
As i said, Mondays can be hard sometimes, but Lee’s was pretty packed tonight. The crowd was definitely into it, and no one seemed to mind that the band neglected to play their most “popular” song … and I think the band is glad not to have to play that song anyways. Still , I’ve got to admit, I wouldn’t have minded hearing it.
Here’s the setlist for the night:
http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/nada-surf/2010/lees-palace-toronto-on-canada-53d49bd9.html