Gig: The Sadies

The Sadies

Toronto Reference Library. Saturday, April 16, 2011.

Another excellent effort from the folks at the Toronto Public Library's "Make Some Noise" program, this time bringing out local twang-titans The Sadies. Heading over after a Record Store Day marathon, I arrived more than a half-hour after the listed start time, winding my way through the crowd to find some space as the band was playing "Stories Often Told".

As they switched over to a moody instrumental, I had time to take stock of my surroundings. The Reference Library's large atrium was pretty full, but not too tightly packed, with the main area of the floor filled with seated people, a ring of standees behind them. Except for the tiered floors of stacks above, it felt more like a mellow folk festival set in a field than anything else. A really nice vibe, and the band sounded really good in this large, open space.

They played a mournful take of "Sunset to Dawn" that reminded me of the previous night's version with the Margaret Good (Dallas and Travis' mother) on vocals. A rare false start while starting "Whispering Circles" was a nod to Dallas' broken foot: "I'm not as agile as I used to be," the seated Dallas said as he made some adjustments to his gear.

That didn't stop him from keeping pace with the exercise-in-acceleration that is "Ridge Runner Reel". And for finale "Tiger Tiger", Dallas did get up on his feet and move over to centre stage to undertake the double-crossover-and-play-each-other's-guitar move with Travis.

The band didn't leave any doubt they were ready to play more and there wasn't a long gap before Travis switched to the fiddle for "Pretty Polly" and "Stay a Little Longer". And then, as has become a bit of a custom, the night was closed out with their mammoth R&B Nuggets medley, though it was now quite mixed up from the earlier Them-centric version I'd heard previously. Quite awesomely, this time 'round it lead off with a run through Spinal Tap's "Gimme Some Money", before detouring through "Psychotic Reaction" and local garage faves The Deadly Snakes "I Gotta Plan (for Saturday Night)" — and then into some "Mystic Eyes" and "Baby, Please Don't Go" before ending up back where it started. So good!

Listen to a track from this set here.

There's nothing slated at the moment, but hopefully there's more to come from the Make Some Noise folks. It really gives a tremendous sense of ownership in our public library when it expands into areas like this.