Hello, Toronto!

Since I discovered pedal-to-the-medal rock outfit The Bright Light Social Hour at CMW, it's always a pleasure to see them live. Friday night, they gave a free headlining show at Yonge-Dundas Square as part of Indie Friday. Recently, they had most of their gears stolen in Saskatoon. But thanks to their fans, they were able to raise the $9,000 non-insurable cost in 5 days. They also received on loan some equipment and found other gears, including a guitar replacement here in Toronto.

So it was a pleasure to see them at the outdoors stage with a full set-up. Although things started with perhaps 20-30 fans and some curious onlookers, by the end of their almost 2 hours set, the square was full with an energized crowd enjoying their sweaty performance. The biggest cheers were for funky numbers from their debut CD including Shanty, Bare Hands Bare Feet, Back and Forth and Detroit. Their new numbers, which tended toward long complicated jams (Maybe I Do, Cause I'm A Man, a cover of Young Man Blues), also got great responses but perhaps those too young to remember these type of drawn-out rock numbers got a little fidgety now and then.

Bands are supposed to make money of touring and merchandise sales nowadays. But from what I've seen at various shows, there's not much uptake at the merch table for unknown bands. So it's a testament to this group from Austin that there were at least 15+ new fans milling around afterward snapping up merchandise and getting autographs.

The only downer was that if you were rocking at the front, you missed out on some of the vocals and keys because the speakers were set to broadcast to the middle and back. I wished more venues would invest in front speakers at stage-level. Concerts with them, including recent shows by Rufus Wainwright and Sarah Harmer, had crystal clear sound.