First off, before the show I noticed there were many teenagers, a.k.a. kids. Now normally I would have been ticked that so many lil ones might wretch my Strokes experience, but I was proved wrong. Before the show, as I’m standing around near the stage, they’re all in front of me, being obnoxious, but I wasn’t irritated, I was calm because I knew I’d be seeing The Strokes soon, woo. Also, very important, it took 2 seconds for me to realize, hey these kids probably have been to 2 maybe 3 concerts before, at the most, therefore they don’t have any concert etiquette, and I’m totally going to be able to use this to my advantage. By mid-show I was twice as close to the stage as I started, those kids have no idea how to stand on their own ground, literally!
The opening band, Most Serene Republic, was pretty good, I enjoyed their performance. They seemed very excited to be opening for The Strokes, so excited that they mentioned The Strokes 3 or 4 times during their set, and then blurting out their name finally, at the very end (way to self-promote, haha). Special attention to the bassist; from the very beginning he was the most excited to be playing on stage. I immediately dubbed him
“Arigato Bassist” because he was seemed literally thankful to be on stage by jamming really hard and dancing around. Toward the end, the band leader said the bassist name was Simon and he had just joined them yesterday (not a bad place to start with a band).
The Strokes set was awesome. I’m going to break their set into three chronological sections, I enjoyed each differently. The first part I was so excited to see them on stage (like everyone else). I must have sung along with at least 3 songs. The first song was the new single “Heart in Cage”, and I know Juicebox was in there somewhere; point being, I was having a concert high off the first bat. The view at this time wasn’t great, it could have been better, but it was fair. Toward the end of the first part, Tall Boys (a.k.a. guys that are over 6 feet) were getting in my way and I was actually so bold for the first time ever and tapped them on the shoulder and said very pleasantly “Hey I’m shorter than you, can I stand in front of you”. This ended up making the concert for me (If I didn’t see Julian whaling away, or study Nic’s steady, straight-forward bass, I would have been pissed). Guitarist: Nicholas was definitely a show stopped for me, I never gave him much attention, but seeing how he was doing all the cool parts, and that he was the closest to where I was standing, I couldn’t look past him.
The second section was probably my favourite. I’m going to say that I started off with “Ize of the World”. Seeing how that’s my favourite song off the album, it has to represent a landmark of the set. This section was really energetic I had had a great time, because I had a really good spot to stand. I should note that where I was standing for the first part had the best sound because I was off to the side so I was getting all the side amps right at me (but of course, not the best view). My memory is failing me, I really can’t remember completely what songs were playing here and then I the last section.
The majority of the set, to be honest, consisted of their singles. They did do a Lou Reed cover of “Take a Walk on The Wild Side” which was pretty cool. And they did a few mellow songs to break up their electric power-punch rocker rock! Oh yeah!
They ended with a 3 song encore, which was cool (the concert would have been less than 90 minutes if they didn’t, good thing they kept going); New York City Cops,
They ended up playing all the songs I wanted to hear which was very satisfying. Seeing them 4 years later, they played a lot better (in terms of crowd appreciation); first time around, at the Skydome, Julian barely acknowledged the crowd, even though it was a good show, he also seemed more conscious this time around, also. However, Julian did mess up the set list like 5 times, throughout the show he’d say “Ok, now we’re going to play…” then the band would be confused, and Julian would be all cute and say “oops, ok, we’re playing this now”, Silly boy.
I ended up not buying a shirt at the show and I’m glad I didn’t. The designs were nothing special, and I would have felt really uncool wearing it at the same time that dozens and dozens of kids decided to wear their freshly pressed shirts during the concert.
I can’t think of anything else from the show. Afterward, my friend Nicole and I were exhausted because we had been on our feet for 6 hours, but it was soo worth it! This concert was definitely one of the two best shows I’ve seen so far this year (the other being Stars at Winterlude, wooo!)
Bring on The Dears at Tulip Festival, word.
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