Toronto’s City and Colour kicked off their month-long coast to coast Canadian arena tour at Victoria’s Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre in support of the critically acclaimed new album, A Pill for Loneliness.
Opening the evening was Vancouver’s alternative country rocker, Ben Rogers. Signed to Still Records — label of longtime friend, Dallas Green — he was a shoe-in as a supporting act for this cross-country tour.
Ben took the stage with a Cobain-esque menace. Maybe it was the scowl, or his posture, but most likely it was the oversized woollen sweater.
His crunchy alt country sounds were just what the doctor ordered as the crowd filed into the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. Rogers and his band quickly won people over with ample guitar solos and rock numbers mixed in the set.
Rogers has gained some notoriety in the recent year playing a fictionalized version of himself on the internet television show, Loudermilk, a show starring Office Space’s Ron Livingston a recovering alcoholic music writer with a bad attitude. Rogers plays foil and romantic interest to Anja Savcic while working at Vancouver’s Neptoon Records and performing with his band in the show. It was great to finally see him live, having only known his music from the series.
Birmingham’s Jacob Banks was wholly unique and unexpected addition to the evening. The multi-genre artist took reference from soul, R&B, and hip hop to bring us something truly astonishing.
It’s hard not to generalize when going to a City and Colour concert, but one sort of expects all the opening acts to be in a similar vein as the headliner. If we thought we’d get singer-songwriter focused alternative rock with some folky or country elements, Jacob Banks was something else. At points it was like watching Charles Bradley or James Brown perform but with the stage command of the likes of Black Star.
Powerful songs like Unholy War, Slow Up, and Love Ain’t Enough had the crowd scrambling to save the songs to their Spotify playlists for future listening.
The soulful and expressive singer commented several times on how much he appreciated being on this tour and getting to experience our country that way. Before leaving the stage, he took note of the country’s good nature and told the audience to “be good to each other… but you probably will be because you’re Canadian.”
Before City and Colour took the stage, the arena neared capacity from the modest sized crowd that had come early to see Ben Rogers and Jacob Banks. Now a sea of aging emo and punk kids who had traded in their eyeliner and MySpace pages for flannel, toques, and comfy shoes filled the seats of the arena.
Over the past decade, Dallas Green has seen a huge amount of success both here in Canada and internationally. Starting his career in the post-hardcore band, Alexisonfire as lead guitarist and melodic backup singer, he found a cult-like following for his solo work as City and Colour. With countless alternative radio hits, he has become a staple of what modern Canadian rock is today.
His set leaned heavily on new material from A Pill for Loneliness, but was peppered heavily with his big singles Fragile Bird, Thirst, The Lonely Life, Wasted Love, and the inescapable single, Strangers. Despite the focus on the new album — released only weeks earlier — it seemed like the entire audience was already intimately involved, singing along at every chance they could get.
Dallas Green seemed to be in an exceptionally jovial mood on this first night of the tour. In past experiences, he can seem quite wooden on stage, but tonight he cut loose, sticking his tongue during solos and joking with the audience most of the night.
At one point, Dallas commented to a young mother holding a baby in the first few rows that it was “one fucking cool baby.” Apologizing for swearing in front of the child but quickly changing his tune when he noticed the hearing protection on the baby.
“I can say ‘Fuck, shit, bitch’ because he has earmuffs on,” Green exclaimed in an obvious referencing Old School. Needless to say the mother didn’t seem too impressed.
Much to the chagrin of diehards, the set didn’t feature a single song off his Dallas’s debut album, Sometimes. Songs like Comin’ Home and Save Your Scissors were noticeably missing from the evening, both of which were yelled out as requests during the band’s encore.
The night ended on an emotional note as we were reminded of the tragic loss of Canadian legend, Gord Downie.
A solid spotlight shone down on a lone microphone as Dallas Green launched into his song, Sleeping Sickness. An insanely popular collaboration between the two artists. As Dallas’s voice crackled to sing Gord’s parts, the crowd joined in to sing the parts for him, leaving Dallas to revel in the crowd participation and his friendship with Gord.
