Toronto – After the political drama known as Massive Attack on Friday night, I was ready for something more simpler, more fun. Luckily, The Shout Out Louds were in town. The Swedish bands put on a show Saturday night at the Mod Club in promotion of their new album Work. Being a large fan of their sophomore album Our Ill Wills, I was definitely excited for this show. I honestly haven’t had the time to fully submerge myself into their new album yet and so I figured this show would be a good introduction to it.
Before we get to the show, let me question the masses – how do you feel about early shows? It seems all weekend shows at the Phoenix or Mod Club are early shows. I guess concert goers don’t drink enough to warrant a club to have people there on a weekend night, so they always make the show end at around 10. I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, you can have a show and still go out on the town if it ends at 10, on the other hand, it feels kinda crappy to have to be in a club at 8 pm. That’s usually dinner time!. Also, if the show is crappy and it ends at 10, then you are in a crappy mood for the rest of the night. I guess it’s a mixed bag. Ideally, I think shows should end at say..11 – 11:30. This still leaves you with ample amount of time to go to bars or clubs and get into trouble.
Finding the show started at 8:30 kind of changed up my game plan quite drastically. I was hoping to catch all of the Penguins/Canadiens game before slowly going for pre-drinks and then hitting the show as the final act. Instead, I was at the Mod Club during the Penguins game, which left me in a distracted state.
The distraction soon left shortly after the band took the stage. Sharply dressed in white dress shirts and black pants, the Shout Out Louds took the stage and quickly launched into 1999. For the crowd, it was pretty much the start of a 90 minute dance session. The Shout Out Louds are a tight band and I was impressed with the variety of instruments they used to generate the indie-pop-with-some-twee-elements anthems they were singing. Bebban Stenborg, the lone female, was especially impressive, going from accordian to drums to keyboards to other devices, all while look mildly bored. We were wondering if she would crack a smile the entire night. Gary might disagree, but I had no idea the Shout Out Louds had this many indie pop anthems. It seemed like every song they played had an epic sounding chorus, one that would reach for the skie and lift the hopes and dreams of the swooning fans with them.
The show was well over an hour and I was very impressed. The energy the band gave out in the live setting definitely is something I didn’t expected since a lot of their songs on the album are a bit more subdued. Obvious highlights for me were the hits The Comeback, Tonight I have to Leave it (featuring a crowd invasion) and Impossible. I was actually getting worried that Impossible was not going to get played, as it wasn’t played on the first set. Luckily, it was the first song of the encore and it was great. Even though the new album hasn’t gotten as much love as the Our Ill Wills, it seemed to mesh pretty well with the other two albums in a live setting.
All in all, a good show and left everyone all pumped up and ready to roll on a Saturday night, so maybe an early start wasn’t that bad.
