A Janglin' Good Time

On Novemeber 24th at El Mocambo in Toronto I had the interesting experience of seeing Edward Sharpe and the Magnificent Zeros perform to a sold out crowd. We arrived at the venue just before 8pm (we didn't want to get their earlier and have another confrontation with the door nazi). We did arrive early in the city so we had some delicious apple beer at Rancho Relaxo (a must for their Mexican food!). The venue started filling pretty steadily. The first on stage were the Local Natives, from California. I had just heard of them that day, and I was impressed. They put on a great performance, full of energy. The below photos are from their set. One thing that all the bands did was use an array of instruments.

The second band Fools Gold (also from California) was less than great. They took FOREVER to set up and do their sound-check. I couldn't understand what they were saying when they were singing - because they sing in Hebrew. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's not my thing. All the songs were long and seemed to drag. The redeeming moment was the last song when they invited a bunch of people on stage, and a man in a cat mask appeared.

Finally "Edward Sharpe" and his 10 bandmates joined the stage. They had no plan it seems. They would have a little huddle between songs to decide what to play, there were a few discussions between Alex and Jane. (Jane was not what I expected btw). It was kinda neat though, they danced and drank liqueur and took off their shoes and just had a great time with the crowd. Once you got over the fact that it looked as if they hadn't showered in a few days you could really get into their vibe. They only played like 6 songs (I think at the end they kind of ran out of ideas of what to play). They did a little encore where they invited anyone who wanted to "Brother" with them on stage. The rest of the audience sat on the floor. Definitely something I've never seen before Alex admitted that he was thinking of canceling the second date the next night but because the crowd was so awesome they were going to play it.