Toronto – Lately I’ve been on a serious Canadian music kick, read: enjoying many bands with nature-themed names (you have no idea how much this amuses me).
Plants and Animals’ freshman effort, Parc Avenue has been on my iPod for about a year, but not on very high rotation. To be honest they never really wowed me. My roommate is a huge fan and bought us tickets to their show at the Opera House last week.
I was pleasantly surprised with this band made up of only 3 members. Plants and Animals can be described as modernized classic rock (a mix of The Kinks and Coldplay is what first comes to mind). These guys have a pretty decent stage presence, they really rock out up there. You can tell P & A have been touring a while when the lead singer/lead guitarist and the bassist start to sync up their “moves” on stage, I found these rock star moves pretty amusing.
About half way through their set P & A brought out a guest saxophonist, apparently he was one of their high school friends (the name of the song escapes me and after The Acorn debacle, I won’t try to guess it). The sax was a great addition to the song and the guy really nailed his solo (sporting a neon green shirt, wayfarers and a matching neon headband) while hamming it up for his 5 minutes of fame.
Later on in the show they announced another guest, which turned out to be fellow Canadian Basia Bulat. She didn’t really do much per se, except augment a few songs with her Autoharp, maraca’s and some other random percussion tools. Regardless of her contribution, it’s cool when bands bring out surprise guests and it definitely adds another layer to the performance.
I have to admit P & A have moved to a more frequent rotation on my iPod and I am going to take a serious listen to their latest album La La Land.