Broken Social Scene at Hillside

[zero]

So being sober does have some benefits the least of which is being able to keep track of and remember everything that was played. Give me another day and I'll have some more thoughts on the new material and the general awesomeness that is the Broken Social Scene but in the meantime I wanted to gel my notes into a line up and setlist for tonight's show.

Broken Social Scene

Hillside Music Festival

Guelph, ON

Sunday, July 24

Andrew Whiteman, Jason Collett, Brendan Canning, Kevin Drew, Evan Cranley, Justin Peroff, Charles Spearin, Dave Newfeld, Amy Millan, James Shaw, Julie Penner, Emily Haines, Ohad Benchetrit, Paul Aucoin, Adam Marvy, Liam O'Neil, K-Os

Jimmy and the Photocall % *

Ibi Dreams of Pavement %

Shoreline (7/4) % &

Fire-Eyed Boy % &

Handjobs for the Holidays % &

Superconnected ! &

Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl ! # *

Freestyle Jam ! ^

Almost Crimes ! & #

Major Label Debut ! & #

Backyards ! & #

I'm Still Your Fag !

% With horns including Ohad Benchetrit, Liam O'Oneil, Charles Spearin, James Shaw, Evan Cranley, Adam Marvey (plus one unidentified woman)

* With Julie Penner on violin

& Amy Millan on vocals

! James Shaw on guitar

# Emily Haines on vocals

^ K-Os on vocals

[guigsy]

right.. but what we're all dying to know is, how was sam roberts?

[zero]

You're quick on the uptake tonight guigs. During the BSS set it did seem like a cruel joke that Sam had to follow them I mean for christ's sake they went as far as to have K-Os come out (is it k-os?) and do a bloody freestyle jam rhyming off about different members of the band, a bit about 'Kevin Times two' (k-os Kevin and Kevin Drew), Amy, Justin Peroff and 'Dave with the two black eyes'. K-Os even crowd surfed during that segment. By the time Sam hit the stage Sam's (Baijal- Hillside's artistic director) decision to have him close made perfect sense. It was just the typical straight ahead four (or in this case five) on the floor cutey pie radio rock- a bit better than that I guess- but it was perfect for the audience, a good populist move. I left early and found myself walking over the causeway hearing k-os guest with Sam too then Brendan Canning guested on that 'I think my life is passing me by' song. The stage was lit up the Hillside sign stood tall. Passing me by indeed.

[guigsy]

hahaha, nice one!

hey, you ever heard a rheostatics song called "good on the uptake"? yell it out once in a while at a show. its fucking brutal. vesely sings it.. go figure.. anyways, a friend of mine had it once, i think it was like a mid-80's demo or 7 inch or something...

anyways, cant wait to hear more about bss... really wanted to make it tonite... had a chance, but had some bad luck with my computer shutting down and me losing a message.. kevo, thanks anyways, dude.. i lost the number, though..

maybe we'll get 'em for the western fair.........

[timouse]

i have to say that BSS was one of the few unexpected delights of hillside. the sheer energy that they work up & deliver was wonderful, and k-os crowd surfing made me giggle

[Large Marge]

Amazing!!! I don't think I've ever seen so much awesome action on one stage. I found myself just shifting focus from one element to another… horns, drums, multiple, multiple guitars - I tried to see if they were playing the same thing but they were all so different; layers I guess. It’s times like these that I wish I knew more about music and instrumentation… my untrained ear could only take in so much at a time!!!

The only downfall was the lame-o K-OS takeover… I think Emily had to tell him to get off the stage at one point, at which time he practically climbed on top of the drummer and kept banging on the high-hat from over his shoulder. While crowd surfing is pretty awesome for Hillside, if that had been my drum kit, I would have drop kicked him out into the audience anyway (and not bothered to pull him back).

I made Mr. Slippery and FlyMyKiteHigh stay to hear Roberts, but reneged my decision about a song and a half in… has he always been that soft? He didn’t even look as hot as I remember… I musta had beer goggles and beer headphones on the last time. Glad I missed the K-Os reappearance, though it may have worked in this case.

Great to see Collins in the crowd

Cheers!

[DevO]

Yeah K-Os looked pretty ripped to say the least! Weird guest appearance.

This show was so so so so good - It felt and sounded a lot better than Ottawa. The set was dominated by new songs and man there are some awesome new ones. Jimmy & The Photocall opener was great, I love that horn section on that tune. I thought he announced the song as "Deja Vu" though. The band seemed a lot more into this show than they were in Ottawa. Maybe its just me but in Ottawa I found a lot of the banter coming from the stage was of a sarcastic nature, being cynical about being there, being in a big successful rock band, being part of this "family" as the media paints them up. Stuff like "you all know the story, were all in this big band and we have other bands and we've all fucked each other" and stuff like "we don't know how we all ended up here but thanks anyways to whoever did this". Did anyone else catch this? On the flipside, they were thankful for this Hillside performance. Kevin Drew said at least 3 times that the band needed this show more than the crowd did, and that it had been a rough week, etc. Not sure what thats all about but they were glad to be there. One of the best shows I've seen in a long long time I'd have to say!

Such a bummer that they weren't the headliners. All I could say after the BSS set was "GOOD LUCK SAM ROBERTS" with a laugh. I should give him a chance I guess, but I didn't. I left and went and saw D.Rangers at another tent to finish off the weekend.

Other Arts & Crafts stuff:

- Theres this radio show on CBC called Fuse. They have a band perform live, usually odd combos of artists I think.. And this CBC lady is up onstage with them and engages in interview/conversation with them between songs. So they did and Arts & Crafts recording on the Lake stage.. I got up right front row centre, sitting down (everyone was sitting). It was Kevin Drew, Amy Milan, Jason Collett, the one guitarist with the curly Tonin hair and guest Ford Pier. Unfortunately I don't know the names of any of the songs. I think they were all unreleased. There was one or two great moments in the set, but overall I must say it was just a disaster! This is due to the CBC host -- she was annoying and it was obvious the musicians didn't really want to associate with her much! Shed ask a question like "So Kevin, tell us about the first song you ever wrote and what its all about". Often responses were "I don't really know, but we're just going to play another song". hehe. Awkwardness at times. Nice to see them up close though. And they almost covered "Big Balls" by AC/DC! Kevin wanted to, Jason vetoed it though.

Andrew Whiteman was a no-show for the first workshop he was supposed to be in, Saturday on the Sun Stage with Geoff Berner, Hamell On Trial, Ember Swift & Ridley Bent. (this workshop was one of my highlights of the weekend by the way, sans Whiteman!)

There was a workshop on Sunday on the Sun Stage with Andrew Whiteman, Amy Milan, Luke Doucet, Gentleman Reg and Jason Collett. I didn't see it all, but the part I did see, they took turns doing a song each. I forgot how good Luke Doucet is. This workshop was good, but not memorable for me really.

Apostle of Hustle has a pretty packed house and they were just about as awesome as they were in Ottawa, if not slightly more awesome.

[timouse]

He didn’t even look as hot as I remember… I musta had beer goggles and beer headphones on the last time.

...you've discovered "virtual beerality!!"

[DevO]

- Theres this radio show on CBC called Fuse. They have a band perform live, usually odd combos of artists I think.. And this CBC lady is up onstage with them and engages in interview/conversation with them between songs. So they did and Arts & Crafts recording on the Lake stage.. I got up right front row centre, sitting down (everyone was sitting). It was Kevin Drew, Amy Milan, Jason Collett, the one guitarist with the curly Tonin hair and guest Ford Pier. Unfortunately I don't know the names of any of the songs. I think they were all unreleased. There was one or two great moments in the set, but overall I must say it was just a disaster! This is due to the CBC host -- she was annoying and it was obvious the musicians didn't really want to associate with her much! Shed ask a question like "So Kevin, tell us about the first song you ever wrote and what its all about". Often responses were "I don't really know, but we're just going to play another song". hehe. Awkwardness at times. Nice to see them up close though. And they almost covered "Big Balls" by AC/DC! Kevin wanted to, Jason vetoed it though.

I forgot to add that Andrew Kenny from American Analog Set showed up half way through the Arts & Crafts workshop. First thing they did was play one of his songs.