Broken Social Scene @ TheCorner Hotel, Melbourne(02/07/2010)

Wed 4th Aug, 2010 in Gig Reviews

The atmosphere at Richmond’s Corner Hotel after Broken Social Scene’s marathon two hour set was more like a religious service than a gig. The band was tired and sweaty, the crowd tired and was sweaty. Every face in the room was wide eyed, smiling, positively ecstatic. Through the thunderous applause and wolf whistles that greeted the encore one guy kept yelling “I never want it to end”.
It takes a pretty special band to inspire that kind of devotion, and to put it simply, Broken Social Scene are pretty darn special.

They hold a unique place in the post-millennial history of indie rock. Begun in Toronto in 2000 by Brendan Canning and Kevin Drew , BSS is an ever changing collective of friends and musicians, a constantly evolving musical project; more a living organism than a band. Over ten years and four albums, BSS has grown members and shed members, swelling from two to upwards of 15 collaborators at times.

On this tour, their third in Australia, I think I counted ten different musicians but I can’t be sure. Their set was a shape shifting, pulsating affair. Players drifted on and off stage, swapping instruments and vocal duties sometimes mid song. No two songs were performed by the same lineup, an impressive achievement for a set which lasted over two hours.

For a group in constant motion, the music they played was remarkably cohesive. A perfect example is World Sick , the first track from this year’s wonderful LP Forgiveness Rock Record , and the opener of their set at The Corner. The guitar work on the track is simply stunning, with four of the band seemingly playing lead at the one time. The guitar lines tip toed around each other in a wave of pure melody, mixing with Justin Peroff’s crashing cymbals and Drew’s soaring chorus. BSS have always made music on a big scale, and on this track they have seldom been bigger.

As well as making great records, BSS have made their name predominantly as a live act. The best tracks from their masterpiece, 2002’s eclectic epic You Forgot It In People , were even better in the live setting, impressive when you consider that the majority of the people on the stage were not even part of the band at the start of the decade.

It was pretty tough not to grin listening to the escalating chug of Charles Spearin’s bass line and Canning’s restrained vocals on Stars and Sons while later, the crunching major key chords and rhythmic changeups of KC Accidental were so visceral that you felt like you could reach out and touch them. Elsewhere the horn driven funk of Love Is New was a nice change of pace, as was the plangent, yearning Sweetest Kill

It’s nice to know that amongst all this change, some things remain the same. Anthems For a Seventeen-Year Girl is still just as subtly affective as it was when we were all in high school, and it was performed with such skill and fervor that when it finished, the crowd were, at least for a few seconds, stunned into silence.

Change seems ingrained into the DNA of this band. And while the faces may change, BSS’s ability to create transcendent, interesting rock is still intact and I for one, can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

CHECK OUT PHOTOS FROM THE GIG HERE