After cancelling on us last winter due to the flu, Kevin Drew led Broken Social Scene back to Dallas and Austin only to make up for the cancelled dates. A cooler, more generous move by any band I cannot recall. Very classy, very cool, and I was extremely impressed. As for the show itself, it was an odd assortment of people, meaning multiple guests, to round out what BSS needed onstage, but the show was still pretty sweet, nonetheless. Hit the jump for the full review, photos, sample MP3s, and the setlist.

So as Broken Social Scene was just making up two shows – Dallas and Austin, and these makeups were months and months after the scheduled date, it was clear that not all regular members of Broken Social Scene were available to fly to Texas for these shows. It also seemed obvious that Broken Social Scene then recruited various members of Texas based bands to fill in and to round out all the pieces they need onstage to complete the set, and that included (at least) two female members of The Polyphonic Spree and the drummer of Spoon.

So, not only thanks to BSS for coming and making up these shows, but thanks to PS and Spoon for helping out. Finally, a consequence of so many fill-ins was that the setlist was probably the shortest I have ever seen BSS play (below), aside from being confined to just one hour at Lollapalooza last summer.

So, they came out with a cool instrumental track and the mix was lead guitar heavy though they had 13-14 people onstage at the peak. They had drummers, singers, and horns courtsey of Polyphonic Spree, per Kevin Drew. They sounded good, though the Palladium is a little cavernous to the somewhat undersized crowd that was there that night… That didn’t stop the crowd from being way into the music and seemingly very grateful to the band for coming and playing this special set. Definitely a cool vibe going on at the venue.

A couple of things I saw – 1) maybe it’s because I think Brendan Canning looks like a tiny Trey Anastasio, but I just cannot get past thinking his solo stuff sounds like bad Phish, and 2) the lead guitarist (not sure who he was or from what band) was doing a LOT of hand flourishes. Like unnecessarily.

A BSS staple is when the band retires after the main set before the encore, Kevin Drew refuses to go backstage and instead just chitchats with the crowd and plays a couple of songs (sometimes). So he was standing out on the stage and he starts to sing various songs just a capella style; mostly some big hits like Major Label Debut and Handjobs. He also talks about how he “can’t remember how [some of his solo songs] go,” and then he rips on the Black Eye’d Peas. Band comes back out and rips the lid off an awesome Anthems and It’s All Gonna Break.

So all in all the show was good. Not the longest set by the band, and not the best, but all that can be expected with such a ragtag group. In the end, I am just mega impressed with them that they would come all the way to Texas and assemble a replacement level band just so they could make up some cancelled dates. Nicely done.

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Setlist:

(Unknown Song)
Fire Eye’d Boy
7/4 (Shoreline)
Love is New (Canning song)
Cause = Time
Instrumental Track
Frightening Lives (Drew solo)
New Song – Drew says it’s the first time it’s been played in the US
(Unknown Song – Canning solo)
Superconnected
KC Accidental
Instrumental Song

Break

Anthems for a 17 Year Old Girl
It’s All Gonna Break

Broken Social Scene – Cause=Time – From You Forgot It in People

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