Sloan | Southpaw | 5.11.2007

I have written enough about Sloan in the past year so I will try to make this brief, but Sloan's show at Southpaw was probably the best I have seen them do for Never Hear the End of It. It was part location, part performance and mostly the setlist.

While I obviously love Bowery Ballroom it was nice to see them somewhere else -- yet not somewhere bigger. Southpaw is just a bit smaller but feels much more intimate, a great place to see a show once you get past the design flaws (the front door, bar and stage all meet for one giant bottleneck) that make the place so annoying. But the sound was great and the crowd seemed to be 100% superfans. Are there casual Sloan fans?

The song selection for me was amazing. It was mostly culled from their great new album, but we older selections were very different from what we've gotten the last few years. Nothing off the last two records.* Five songs off my favorite, One Chord to Another, three from Navy Blues, and three from Twice Removed, including the awesome "People of the Sky" and "500 Up" which I don't think I've ever heard them play before. I could have used more Jay -- though getting "Don't You Believe a Word" was a highlight -- but overall zero comp.  For the encore, Chris and Patrick also paid homage to legendary Canadian power trio Rush by covering "Spirit of Radio" briefly before kicking into encore staple "Deeper Than Beauty." Patrick was a little under-the-weather, but they all seemed into it. With all that audience love, how could you not be? 

MP3: Sloan - G Turns To D.mp3 | One of my all-time favorite Chris songs, haven't heard them play it live in ages. Buy some Sloan, won't you?

Chris was hamming it up as usual, though he's now added planned camera-mugging to his arsenal -- as you can see here in pictures swiped from Xtine and Kristyliekwhoa's Flickr pages. My new digital camera has proved a better video camera in dark situations, so I've been fooling around with that. Here's a twofer ("Living with the Masses" and "HFXNCHC") plus some stage banter from Andrew:

Other blogs in attendance: Matthew Fluxblog and Matty from A Hamburger Today. Here's the setlist:

Flying High Again | Who Taught You to Live Like That | Someone I Can Be True With | Ill Placed Trust | G Turns to D | The Lines You Amend | Fading Into Obscurity | Golden Eyes | Love is All Around | Living With The Masses | HFXNSHC | Blackout | Money City Maniacs | Don't You Believe a Word | Set in Motion | I Understand | You Know What It's About | Chester The Molester | I Can't Sleep | People of the Sky | Something's Wrong | I've Gotta Try | Everything You've Done Wrong | Before the End of The Race | Ana Lucia | The Good in Everyone | Another Way I Can Do It |Encore: Deeper Than Beauty | 500 Up | She Says What She Means

*Not that there's anything wrong with Pretty Together and Action Pact. Well, Pretty Together at least.

Comments

[cinchel]

hey...action pact has rest of my life .. a great song...but as i was trying to find more songs off that album to come back at you with i am at a loss. ..oh well...

[SoundBitesNYC]

Well, my real beef with Action Pact are Patrick's songs, none of which I like whatsoever. Most of Chris and Jay's are pretty good, though. I like "Rest of My Life," "Nothing Lasts Forever Anymore," "False Alarm" and "Fade Away." The rest is not up to snuff.

[tommy]

caught sloan (the night before?) at maxwells and we pretty much said it was one of their best shows ever, and we've seen quite a few. i went in thinking i was going to hate it, as i'm way too old to push to the front of maxwells anymore, and they aren't exactly the tallest band in canada, which generally means that i will see only the tops of their heads. but maxwells was filled with an unusually short crowd which allowed us decent viewing from the back.

anyway, since slagging off the latest album when it first came out, i have finally come around and figured it out, and it certainly is one of their best. a little more challenging perhaps, which is a good thing.

they played a lot of the album, and as you suggest from your review a lot of gems that i hadn't heard in a while, or ever. a fantastic show all-in-all.

the DVD of backstage nonsense and live cuts was a great buy at 15 bucks. a must for any fan. i could have watched hours of it (it's only about 30 or 40 minutes).

hooks, harmonies, more hooks, excellent players, great personalities, great songwriters, positive vibes, rabid fans. they don't make bands like this anymore. come to think of it they didn't make many even when they were making them.