Toronto – Security Lady: “Stars are on at 10:30pm”. It’s 9:30. Alright, we have an hour so let’s pop over to Il Gatto Nero for a quick one before going in. We drink up and head back over and make it in for 10:15 and Stars are already on. Of course. The sold out Mod Club was steamy with hundreds of us packed in like sardines. Even though we were standing at the very back by the soundboard for the first half of the show the heat still made you uncomfortable so I could only imagine what those poor poor bastards twenty feet in front of us were feeling. Man, I guess it’s not 1998 anymore and I’m a huge wuss.
The purpose of this tour is for Stars to showcase their new album The Five Ghosts by playing it from beginning to end (Release date is June 22). Going to a show knowing in advance that the band will be playing all new material may make the biggest fans pass, stay at home and watch the playoffs but Stars fans were out in full force. This only leaves me to conclude that Stars fans hate hockey. The day of the show I checked craigslist to see what people were asking for tickets just for the hell of it. Some guy was asking for $125 a ticket and even had the gall to say “no lowballers”. Douchebags continue to walk amongst us.
All in all, the new album sounded pretty decent with lots of synths and strong vocals shared between Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan. Torquil encouraged the crowd to buy the vinyl and then rip it on to their computers even though I didn’t see a merch table anywhere. Slightly ironic considering The Five Ghosts sounds much more electronic than their prior albums as well as the Mod Club having some insanely complicated-looking digital soundboard. In the middle of their first set Torquil put his white jacket on which I’m pretty sure he wore at Queen Elizabeth Hall last time I saw them. This puzzled me considering the heat. Amy was much more appropriately dressed wearing a small sparkly blue dress with high heels. Pretty hot when you add an electric guitar to the mix.
After they completed the first part of their set they took a ten-minute break. I went outside to get some fresh air and while walking out Jian Ghomeshi was walking in with a couple buddies. I only overheard him say “yeah, I’ve just been really busy lately”. In all fairness, he does work his tail off and he’s gaining more respect from me lately but mostly because of the musical guests he’s been interviewing (The Weakerthans, Los Campesinos!, MGMT, Broken Social Scene ,The National, Neko Case, Sonic Youth, etc.). I guess he doesn’t really book the guests though so maybe he needs to work harder to gain my respect. Also, he stole a cab from me once on Queen Street a couple years ago. True story. Jian must have only caught the second set though because of him being so super busy. Stars continued with my personal favourite song Your Ex-lover is Dead and played several other favourites like Elevator Love Letter and Ageless Beauty while throwing white flower petals in to the crowd. We were able to watch the rest of the show from the balcony which was less stuffy, crowded and closer to a bar and bathroom. Bonus. They played a one-song encore.
Setlist was as follows (courtesy of Wade):
First set:
“Dead Hearts”
“Wasted Daylight”
“I Died So I Could Haunt You”
“Fixed”
“We Don’t Want Your Body”
“He Dreams He’s Awake”
“Never Been Good with Change”
“The Passenger”
“The Last Song Ever Written”
“How Much More”
“Winter Bones”
Second Set:
Your Ex Lover Is Dead
Take Me to The Riot
Elevator Love Letter
Heart
Ageless Beauty
One More Night
Calendar Girl