Broken Social Scene – Live @ Pitchfork

July 22, 2010

Since the last time that I saw Broken Social Scene they’ve stripped down the membership to the core essentials and released a solid new album, Forgiveness Rock Record. Although this set wasn’t quite as outstanding as the Lollapalooza performance which I saw previously, it was still great to see Kevin, Brendan and the gang on stage again. The band played a great selection from all their proper albums including ”Stars and Sons” and the always magnificent “Cause=Time” from their debut, “7/4 Shoreline” (with vocals from the now-frontwoman Lisa Lobsinger) and “Fire Eyed Boy” from their self-titled second album, and “World Sick”, “All in All”, “Forced to Love” and “Texico Bitches” from their newest. 

While some rightfully claim that Broken Social Scene are a sloppy live band, the loosely-held-together chaos of their show is part of the appeal for me (Kevin mentioned by having the word “Broken” in the band name, it’s guaranteed them that their equipment would never function quite right). You also have to give them props for the amount of local talent they bring to the stage to fill out their massive sound. This included Tortoise / Sea and Cake’s Jon McEntire on percussion and an array of other Chicago-based instrumentalists on violin, cello, sax, trumpets and trombones which made huge songs like “Shoreline” and “Ungrateful Little Father” all the better.

The band ended with the anthemic instrumental “Meet Me In The Basement”  which doesn’t quite meet the epic sprawl of “It’s All Gonna Break” but is about is pretty damn close and provided perhaps the biggest highlight of their set. The climatic moment saw about a dozen people on stage playing their hearts out including a strings, percussionists, horns, keyboards and loads of guitar. Biggest dissapoint: Brendan Canning shaved his beard. Come on man, the beard and the funky tank tops (still there thankfully) is your trademark!

MP3 World Sick

Follow the jump for more Broken Social Scene pictures. Click here to see the full set.

Posted by Taylor in Festival, Live