On an unseasonably warm October evening nearing the end of his band’s set, Broken Social Scene frontman Kevin Drew looked out over a restless Wisconsin Union Theater crowd and quietly announced, “The whole fucking world is exhausted.”
While Drew may have been speaking accurately in a political and social sense, he certainly wasn’t referring to himself or any of his fellow bandmates. The Canadian indie super-group treated approximately 1,000 fans, largely comprised of University of Wisconsin students, to over two hours of their patented orchestral pop excursions.
A rotating cast of nearly 20 musicians comprises Broken Social Scene (seven took the stage Saturday night), and for as sprawling and densely-layered as their music normally tends to be, each instrument blended seamlessly with the others, rather than engaging in a fight for supremacy. In addition to utilizing up to five guitars (yup, five) for a single song, a brass section featuring a trumpet and saxophone snaked its way into a majority of the tracks, sleekly punctuating the quieter moments and adding weight to the more boisterous ones.
The group liberally drew the evening’s setlist from every corner of its discography, and the band devoted a surprising amount of time to tracks from Drew and bassist Brendan Canning’s recent solo releases under the “Broken Social Scene Presents…” moniker. The blissful stomp of cuts like “Cause=Time” off 2003’s You Forgot It in People mixed well with quieter, more love-struck moments gleaned from the following year’s Feel Good Lost LP.
One of the night’s highlights was a swelling rendition of “Anthems For a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl,” featuring Elizabeth Powell dreamily singing the mantra “Park that car/ Drop that phone/ Sleep on the Floor/ Dream about me,” all while a backdrop of stage lights slowly shifted through the color spectrum. Powell is also singer and guitarist for like-minded indie-rock outfit Land of Talk, who were the evening’s opening act.
After experiencing Broken Social Scene in a live setting for the first time, it’s easy to see how they’ve developed their cult following and continual critical success. They play loose, jumping from instrument to instrument, and, despite the pretentiousness that sometimes comes hand-in-hand with the “indie-rock heroes” territory, they appeared to be truly enjoying themselves. Between songs Drew and Canning for the most part chatted casually with the audience on a variety of topics ranging from sex to drugs to the election to their genuine feelings of empathy for the alcohol-deprived crowd of devotees.
Good performances should be cathartic for both band and audience, and BSS seemed to understand that as Drew, during the latter end of the show, encouraged the crowd to “scream your guts out” all the while “thinking about everything you want and everything you don’t have.” He gave the cue, the crowd roared into the rafters, and the band answered with a distortion-drenched wave of noise, and the entire building sounded everything but exhausted.
