Toronto – There are so many Asians in the golden horseshoe area of Toronto, it boggles my mind that there is no pho or chinese (or even thai) places along the 401 from Toronto to Montreal/Ottawa. Are you telling me if you are driving along the 401 and there is a service station with some pho there, you won’t instantly get it? We have really limited options when doing that commute. I think the only time I ever eat at Wendy’s is when I’m in a car from one place to another. Did u know their chicken salad now features breaded chicken? How healthy is that? (I had a bacon cheeseburger…mark had the chicken salad)

I got back from an exhausting party trip from Ottawa at about 8:00 pm on Sunday night. I wasn’t too sure about whether or not I had it in me to go see The Big Pink at Lee’s Palace. However, I decided that I only live once and it was too close to not go. Lee’s Palace had conveniently said that the band was going to go on at 10. Great! I thought, I could be home by 11.

Arriving at around 9:45, I saw a moderately packed crowd at Lees. Not too many ‘lads’, which is a pleasant surprise considering its a British band. You know who you are. Stop screaming out whatever small English village you are from whenever you see a Brit band show. No one cares. Anyways, I chatted with a few friends for a bit and then 10:00 rolled around. Then 10:15 ..then finally at around 10:25, the four piece band (guitar, drum, synth, bass) came on to a cloud of smoke and strobe lights. Great! Seriously, I don’t know about you, but if I was going to make a presentation at work and I was 25 minutes late, I might as well start packing my bags. I wonder why this is acceptable for the music industry. All in the name of rock n roll, I guess. I sound like an old man.

I was fairly impressed with their live set. Robbie Furze plays the guitar like a machine gun. If there was a game called “Rock Star Concert Poses Hero”, I think him and his bassist would definitely be able to get a pretty good score on “hard” and maybe a decent score on “expert” levels. The constant strobe lights and smoke machines nicely complimented the wall of sound shoe gaze j&mc feel to their show. I would dare say, the show would only be half as good if there wasn’t smoke and lights. Maybe that says something about the band. I don’t know. They were a bit heavy on the shoegazing and never interacted with the crowd at all, but that is of no surprise given their influences and the fact that they were British.

The live renditions of upbeat songs like Crystal Visions were quite good and just different enough from the album to make you think that they aren’t a studio/production band. I think the slower numbers dragged, but I might be a bit bias because I had been on the road all day. The show was about 45 minute long and closed with the extreme crowd pleaser single “Dominos”. There was no encore, but I think the band had no songs left anyway.

Overall, a decent show. Would have been better if they started at 10 as promised.

Chromewaves was also at the show.