Any band who starts a show by playing two of their biggest singles holds a confidence in their performance ability and catalogue of great songs to carry the rest of the set. Broken Social Scene successfully proved this when they opened their October 9 concert at the Winspear with 7/4 Shoreline and Texico Bitches, and had nearly everyone in the audience out of their seats and dancing within the first ten minutes.
Each song saw musicians rotating off and on stage depending on the need for their instrumental or vocal additions. Kevin Drew's haunting solo of Lover's Spit echoed into the depths of the Winspear sending chills down my spine. Other songs saw a total number of 11 members playing a song, reminiscent of the the large collective of musicians who have toured with the band and contribute to the records (Wikipedia currently has band members listed at 25).
Lisa Lobsinger was the sole female on stage, but held her own easily. She always seemed to float across the stage regardless of whether she was singing or playing an instrument. She performed Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl well, but I personally didn't think it measured up to the live version by Emily Haines, who performed it in Edmonton at the acoustic Metric show last year. Lobsinger's voice truly shone when she sang All to All, a performance that still hasn't gotten out of my head a week later.
I thought the extended jam/dance session of Meet Me in the Basement should have been moved to the end of the set as a great upbeat finale, but when Kevin Drew asked if the audience wanted more, the encore was delivered so brilliantly that when I left the Winspear, I was still dancing across Churchill Square.
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