Broken Social Scene – Dillo Day – 5.31.08

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Northwestern had a pretty fair lineup of bands going for their annual end of the year Dillo Day up in Evanston, notably the great Broken Social Scene, so I decided to roll up to E-town to check out their free show. The rest of the lineup was pretty good as well with the Cool Kids and Common up that night, but I didn’t really catch anyone else unfortunately. I did see Ted Leo, and he was alright, but kind of so-so, not really my cup of tea. The crowd was rather sparse and extremely muddy, but BSS still put on a pretty good show.

I certainly do think these guys are one of the great live bands still out there today. The first time I saw them back in 06 they completely blew me away, hence my willingness to travel so far up to Evanston to go see them again. It was a bit of a weird scene there as the field was left in shambles after Third Eye Blind had played there that morning. It was basically a giant mud pit. But everyone was kind of standing around the mud pit, and then there were about 10 people who were just living in the mud, or mud people as I called them.

Kevin Drew initially started off by saying “your school must have a lot of money to pay us to come play this private party, we admit we are a little confused, but if you’re ok with it then we’re ok with it”. He was in fine form with quite a few nice anecdotes for the crowd throughout the set. They opened with an instrumental track and then launched into the musical gold that is “7/4(Shoreline)”. I wasn’t really sure how much classic BSS they would play as opposed to the newer Drew/Canning stuff, and I think it ended up being about half and half. The majority of songs played were newer, but still sounded really good. The songs they played from Brendan Canning’s new album were pretty good I thought. The highlights for me though were certainly the old BSS jams. After a few newer songs they dropped “Anthems For A 17-Year Old Girl” on us, which is a great jam, but wasn’t quite as powerful with only one female singer (they only had Amy Millan of Stars with them). From the venerable back catalog they finished with “Major Label Debut” into “Ibi Dreams of Pavement”, which both were totally awesome. Selfishly I wish they had played more of the older songs, but even with just the 4 they did play they were awesome, and the newer songs were really solid as well.

BSS is on the festival circuit this summer with stops at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and Outside Lands in San Fran. These guys are one of the most on the ball live bands out there, and they really get the crowd into it, and they are extremely talented, so I would certainly say if you are going to any of the festivals they are at this year make sure to mark them on your schedule. Plus you never know when they are going to break up or stop touring again.

Broken Social Scene – 7/4(Shoreline) – From Broken Social Scene