BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB

Here's a show review of BRMC at the Kool Haus in Toronto from Saturday night.

I just recently got into this band, dunno how I had not been in the "know" sooner, but better now than never, I guess. I googled the opening act, The Cobbs from Philadelphia. Their myspace songs blew, so this granted me an extra 30 minutes to chill out and watch some of The Devil Wears Prada, that Tara was rocking (side note: Anne Hathaway is smoking! *). So The Kool Haus is a convenient 10 minute walk from my house, so I rolled up at 9:30pm as BRMC were scheduled for a 10pm start, and after rolling up to Nas a month prior at the same venue thinking I was early and missing the first 20 minutes of his set, littered with bangers, I wasn't gonna make the same mistake twice. I caught the last song by The Cobbs and it wasn't completely terrible, but meh. I staked claim on my standing spot and held my ground for 30 minutes with a serious TM sesh with Beeps & Fat Mat. The lights dimmed and some intro music played, sounded almost like they were playing instruments from the side or something. The smoke machines were blasting and from amidst the smoke BRMC emerged and started the set with "Took Out A Loan" the first track off their latest offering "Baby 81." They went into all their songs relatively fast, with very little stage banter. They also had crazy lights set up where every once in awhile, while they were getting their "sonic-sounding rock-groove" on (I witnessed people around me closing their eyes to really feeeeeel the music too) it flashed rapidly, as a strobe effect but almost blinding, cause they had like 5 of these high powered lights. Kinda cool, but kinda hard on the eyes.

I always seem to end up near the screamers at shows. This one girl started screaming as soon as they entered the stage and continued to do so at the start of every song. She also did this jump up and down, sloppy drunk, mosh/dance, where she kept bumping into me and/or whipping me with her hair. I slowly moved away. The band played for about 2 hours, which was awesome. They released a slower, less rock record entitled "Howl" and 3/4 through the set the band left and the guitar player who sings played a couple songs of this record. The bassist then came out and doubled up the vocals, and then played his own unreleased song. It's confusing to say "bassist" and "guitarist" as they switched instruments during the show, but I'm gonna stick with my assumptions though, cause they played those respective instruments for the majority of the set.

As it would seem they were done, the lights came on and I started to head in the direction of the exit. The chanting for one more song seemed like it was doing nothing, but the band ended up coming back out. On my way to the doors I ended up a lot closer to the stage, and stuck around for the encore. BRMC hadn't played Toronto for quite sometime, as they said on stage, so they promised to make it up to the audience. They then went on to take heckled requests and played another 5 songs. The alleged bassist even jumped down to the barricade and gave high fives as the band played on. He insisted the lights remain on to "see all the beautiful faces." It added a cool atmosphere to what was a somewhat dark environment. The attendees who were pounding back their oh so beloved Molson Canadians all night really put on their "party shoes" for these last few songs and a mosh pit erupted. A few guys who look like your typical big jean wearing, hacky-sack types even got so into it, they managed to briefly crowd surf. The awkward type where they float for a second, look as if they're going down but surprise you with a sudden emergence from what seemed like a surfers doom.

All in all it was a great set, they played material off all their 4 LPs, and left the Toronto crowd satisfied. It was awesome to see them live, because it only made me like the band even more. If you have yet to check these guys out, they kind of have an updated The Jesus & Mary Chain sound.

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