Toronto – I’ll be the first to admit, when I saw the set times for Monday night’s Hercules and Love Affair show – 11:30 pm, I openly bitched about it. It’s Monday night! People have day jobs the next day! Then somehow I realize I usually sleep around 1:00 am anyway and that I’m just falling into the common old people trap of complaining about random things just for the sake of complaining. Why do old people have to complain just for the sake of complaining? Why! Can’t stand it.
Whenever I have a tough decision to make, I refer to the famous Harry Potter quote:
We all must choose between what is right, and what is easy.
The easy way out would have been to just bail on the show and get some good sleep, but the music gods spoke out to me and after not much deliberation, I decided to venture forth down to the Mod Club.
Thank God I did.
Taking the stage promptly after 11:30, Hercules and the Love Affair leader Andy Butler quickly introduced the singers – Kim Ann Foxman, Aerea Negrot and Shaun Wright. The latter two were new and recruited from Berlin. Mark Pistel also joined the group, working all those electronic things with Butler, who started the show off with a declaration of love for Toronto. Apparently one of the two thousand music bloggers in Toronto was the first one to write about the band.
Any exhaustion that anyone had from the late start was quickly erased as soon as the first beats dropped. With the three singers moving around, dancing and generally encouraging the crowd to party, the packed crowd at the Mod Club turned quickly into a sweaty dance pit. The energy the three singers showed was relentless and that energy easily kept the crowd going through out the whole show. The singers were balanced out nicely, founding member Kim Ann Foxman had the higher notes, Aerea Negrot handled a lot of the mid range and Shaun Wright was brought in whenever the music called for some boom boom bass like voice. They complemented each other really well.
The set, as expected, consisted of many tracks from the new album. A few hits from their first album – You Belong, Raise Me Up, True False – Fake Real and of course Blind were played. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the way Blind was played live, it involved a more low key mix then the one on the album, but it was still good nonetheless. The new material seemed quite good, although given the non stop onslaught of music, one tune soon blended into other. The show was basically what happens when Soul Train meets a 80s New York disco house.
It would be interesting to see a Hercules and Love Affair show with a full horns and strings section, but I’ll take what I can.
In conclusion, if there was a reason to stay up late on a work night, a Hercules and Love Affair dance party is as good as any.
Hercules’ Theme – Hercules & Love Affair by Ragazza2008
Exclaim also has a review on the show.