Concert Review: Caribou, November 23, Danforth Music Hall

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At the outset of Caribou‘s set at The Danforth on Tuesday night, Dan Snaith announced how happy he and the band were to be playing again and to see everyone at the show, adding, “Thank you for waiting so long for this.”

His words echoed those of most musical acts who have made their return to the stage over the past several months, but they seemed to hit a little harder and mean a little more at this show.

After all, if you’ll recall, Caribou was originally meant to be playing this show way back in March of 2020 and that original date was one of the first notable Toronto shows to be postponed due to COVID. So for it to finally be happening all these months later was certainly appreciated by all.

Snaith and his backing band put on a solid show, which is not too surprising considering they’ve been playing together for many years now. The band has an impressive musical rapport, exemplified on this evening by their epic performance of “Sun” – a song that went on so long that I almost forgot they were still playing that same song until they circled back to its main motif at the end. This is of course not a slight on them at all – “Sun” sounded brilliant and was one of the highlights of the night. It was far from the only one though, with “Odessa”, “Our Love” and the nonstop positivity parade that is “You Can Do It” also standing out as notable highlights.

In an interview done with The Toronto Star in advance of this show, Snaith described his current live set as “just a big dance party”, which is indeed an accurate description of what went on at the Danforth on this occasion. And while many people (around me at least) may have still refrained from full on dancing, it’s hard to argue that the energy levels of this show didn’t have that big dance party energy. This was a joyous performance.

Posted on by Paul in Concerts