Gig: The Sadies

The Sadies (Sarah Slean)

Harbourfront Centre. Thursday, July 1, 2010.

Out, once again, for some Canada Day musics down at Harbourfront Centre. And while I was rather enthused for The Sadies, I had no particular interest in Sarah Slean who was up first, but I wanted to stake out some realestate. So I got there in good enough time to grab a very nice spot that was central and not too far back as the seats were filling in. When things got underway, Slean took the stage and led the performance off with a rendition of "O Canada". Which I guess I should begrudge on the national holiday, but it still seems a little too rah-rah for my liking. Maybe I come from a different generation, but back in my day we considered ostentatious displays of patriotism to be pretty gauche.¹ Amusingly, perhaps, her first song after sitting down at her piano was the less-nationalistic "California". Reading around a bit — I wasn't particularly familiar with her work going in — I note that Slean claims a cabaret influence in her work. Perhaps that accounts for the slight patrician pout, an almost too-calculated set of gesticulations and some carefully over-mannered enunciations, which were tempered by her almost giddy ebullience — my notes included, in block letters, "suspiciously perky".

The upshot of which was a largely "big" feel to the music, even with a small backing band (guitar, drums, stand-up bass). Her piano-led songs also drifted toward the smoothly bland. "Get Home" was mildly nice, but felt like it was ready to be deployed for an TV-episode-ending dramatic montage. Or perhaps it's that I found her slower-paced material more convincing, as I'd say that "Goodnight Trouble" worked well enough, too. Obviously talented but just not on my wavelength, I did feel a bit of the delight that a lot of the people around me were getting with closer "Day One", but on the whole I didn't come away from this feeling that I'm going to have to check out more of her work.

There was a surprisingly large turnover after Slean left the stage — apparently heaps of people had showed up just for her. As the headliners' set time approached, there were still seats to be had scattered around the crowd, though things filled in with the late-arriving crowd who only wanted to The Sadies. There was the usual highly-mixed crowd that you often see at the Harbourfront, which is always good to see. I was delighted by the pair of adorable older women beside me — dead ringers for Fiff and Fam, dressed in their Sunday best. I got the impression they were related to someone in the band, but they were definitely there to enjoy themselves, and not just out of familial obligation.

A perfect choice to celebrate Canada Day, The Sadies took the stage to the closer-to-home (if somewhat kitschy) strains of "A Place To Stand, A Place To Grow". Long-time fixtures on the local music scene, the four-piece (brothers Travis and Dallas Good up front on guitars, plus Sean Dean on stand-up bass and Mike Belitsky on drums) seem to have broken out a bit to the wider consciousness with their newest album (this year's fine Darker Circles) getting a Polaris nomination and more firmly putting to rest some of the perpetual "They're a great live band, but..." sorts of comments.

Here, they started off in a frenzy, powering through a quick succession of songs, everything presented with their patented blend of country-surf-twang, a musical approach that allows them to stretch out in a variety of directions, from gospel to psychedelia. An early highlight was "Strange Birds", which was first heard on The Mayors of the Moon, the band's ace 2003 collaboration with Jon Langford. With Dallas Good's baritone vocal, the song felt recast in a slightly more somber tone than the original. Now settled in, the band played the first couple cuts ("Another Year Again", "Kut Corners") from the new one.

It's interesting to see how The Sadies have integrated some of their diverse directions (and massive warehouse of songs) by structuring the show almost as mini-sets, with two or three linked songs punctuated by one the kick-ass instrumentals that were once their primary stock-in-trade. When, after almost half an hour, the band paused long enough to chat for a moment, Dallas Good was humble to a fault, and then boosted the good vibes by bringing out his mother, Margaret Good, to sing on "Loved on Look", which has a "shoop shoop" chorus that can get stuck in your head for hours at a time. They'd be joined by more family, including father Bruce Good ("it's family day and Canada Day!" he beamed into the mic) and a cousin on violin for "Higher Power" and a turbocharged "Stay a Little Longer".²

And after that, the songs kept coming at a dizzying pace. There were some jaunts through the back catalogue: the title track from 2002's Stories Often Told, plus "What's Left Behind" and "The Trial" (from New Seasons, 2007). A lot of them came and went lightning quick, but the band showed they can stretch out when they want to, like on newer track "Tell Her What I Said". The main set ended with a fiery run through "Tiger Tiger" before the band left the stage for a quick encore break.

Coming back, after the thirty second burst of "16 Mile Creek", they changed gears and played "a song that's fitting for the lightshow", a superb cover of Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine" that went blow-for-blow with the fireworks hovering over the water in the distance. And then, as if that weren't enough, they returned for a second encore, stretching things right up to the curfew with a monumental garage rock medley of Them songs, starting and ending on the immortal "Gloria", but also touching on "I Can Only Give You Everything", "Baby Please Don't Go" and "Mystic Eyes". Amazing stuff that the band killed on, despite Dallas blowing out a string not far into it. Fully living up to their reputation, this was a Canada Day show to remember.

Check out a couple tracks from this set here.

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¹ When I was growing up, national pride was always expressed like religious faith in a Dreyer film — with vaguely-grim, clenched-jaw internal resolve. Even the word "patriotism" seems faintly un-Canadian to me.

² The Goods are, indeed, a noteworthy musical family. Dallas and Travis' father plays with their uncles Brian and Larry Good as The Good Brothers, a highly-acclaimed group in the country scene. I didn't catch the name of the violin-playing cousin — I thought I heard Bessie Good, but that doesn't turn up anything online.