Toronto – I will openly admit that the last time I saw Mister Heavenly, I went largely because I was curious to see Michael Cera (their bassist at the time)performing with them. Not the only reason, mind you – I like Islands and Modest Mouse and I’ve at least heard of Man Man (hey, there’s a lot of bands out there, I can’t be expected to listen to everything …) so I knew the band had a pretty decent pedigree. But for me and a large part of the crowd at that show, Cera was certainly a draw. Yet the band existed before he joined on bass and they continue on after. So this tour is sort of a proving ground for them to see what the reaction is without some famous guy on bass … not that they need to prove anything.
The band displayed some solid musicianship and songwriting chops, with Nick Thorburn and Ryan Kattner splitting the vocal duties, often sharing them during the same song. After touring these songs around for awhile, they certainly seemed quite polished in their performance with the songs sounding pretty good. The offered up a couple of great covers too – Cody Chesnutt’s “Look Good In Leather” (a highlight of their set) and a raw version of The Misfits’ “Hybrid Moments.”
Thorburn generally took on the role of frontman, interacting with the crowd by telling stories about parents texting and editing Wikipedia and making a couple of odd references to SARS (does he know something we don’t?) while the absence of Kattner’s trademark ‘stache kind of took me by surprise, especially during Movember. Was he regrowing it for the month or does he like to not have a ‘stache in order to stand out while everyone else around grows one? And of course, Michael Cera was nowhere to be found, not even in a guest spot in his hometown. This can only mean one thing – the Arrested Development movie is on for sure! They must be filming it right now! Yeah! SARS!