“Hello Toronto. It’s been awhile,” said Twilight Sad vocalist James Graham to the crowd upon taking the stage (adding that there was no intended reference to “that shite Staind song”) and perhaps because they’d been away for awhile, the band wasted no time in getting right down to business.
Starting out strong with “There’s A Girl In The Corner,” The Twilight Sad put on an intense, emotionally charged performance that covered songs from throughout their career, from “That Summer, At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy” to “The Wrong Car” to a trio of songs off of their upcoming album IT WON/T BE LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME, which sees the band continuing on with the synth heavy post-punk sounds they’ve been working with ever since 2012’s No One Can Ever Know – listening to some of the new tracks, I’d wager the band may have learned a trick or two from all that time spent opening for The Cure on their last arena tour. The highlight of the set though was a beautiful cover of Frightened Rabbit’s “Keep Yourself Warm,” a song that the band has been performing regularly on this tour in memory of the late Scott Hutchison.
As they ended things off for the night, Graham thanked the crowd for coming out, again acknowledging that they hadn’t played Toronto in some time. “We’ve not toured in awhile so that you’ve come out to see us on a Saturday night is absolutely mind blowing,” he said. And while it was true that The Twilight Sad hadn’t been through Toronto for a bit, Saturday night’s show at Velvet Underground was well worth the wait.