Outside Lands Day Three: Canadian Achin’ for Stars and Broken Social Scene

Photo: Chris Tuite

Something you may already know: Canadians love seeing each other in other countries. It’s the macrocosm version of seeing your neighbor at the supermarket. “Oh, hello, we live near each other! We’ve both chosen this situation to be in! Isn’t that neat?” Well, the same thing happens to Canadian musicians, especially those that orbit in and around Broken Social Scene. And, as far as Canadians who are also musicians go, that Venn diagram shares a lot of middle ground.

So it’s not a surprise that the appearance of both Stars and Broken Social Scene at the same festival, on the same day, on the same stage, would result in some serious “Howdy, Neighbor!” action. First to take up residence on the Twin Peaks stage was Stars, who were the inaugural group to spin off from the original BSS. On a stage bursting with bouquets of roses, singers Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan passed their trademark duets back and forth before an excited audience. “This is a conditional dedication,” said Campbell by way of set up for “Soft Revolution.” “To Barack Obama, as long as you don’t turn into a motherfucking cocksucker like the others.” From there the band would offer material mostly from 2004’s Set Yourself on Fire, as well as this past year’s In Our Bedroom After the War, all the while tossing roses haphazardly into the throng.

Millan was more effusive than usual, taking up nearly as much banter time as the legendarily chatty Campbell (sample: “Okay ladies and gentlemen, you have about six days left to have a summer romance. So get to it!”), and shimmying across the stage in a black fringed dress. Not to be outdone, Campbell sang a line from Phil Collins’ “One More Night” as an intro to the band’s own track of the same name, albeit with alternative lyrics: “Give me one more night, I can’t fuck you to death forever.” With conversational vigor like that, it was only natural that the energy of the set was high, as was the desire to share it. “Have you heard of Andrew Bird and Broken Social Scene?” Campbell asked, before sending the kids away on “Take Me to the Riot.” “They’re pretty good. You should stay and see them.” If not for your own sake, then for theirs: much of the band would return, energy intact, for BSS’s set later in the day.

Once the primary incubator for Canadian music talent, Broken Social Scene is now more like a hometown for its members: homey, familiar, a bit quaint. Nice to visit, but not somewhere people spend too much time in. It’s no surprise then that the original troupe is down to a few core members— I spotted Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning and Justin Peroff—and that the rest of the touring band is cobbled together from the Scene’s home label, Toronto’s Arts & Crafts, and from friends in other bands. At Outside Lands, guests included Land of Talk’s Liz Powell and original BSSer Andrew Whiteman (Apostle of Hustle), among others. Embracing the now-patchwork nature of his collective, Drew gave ample time to the promotion of his friends’ work (such as Brendan’s new album, Something For All of Us, from which BSS played a track, and numerous mentions of the other bands these folks spend time in). Between these asides, BSS breathed new life into old material from Broken Social Scene and You Forgot it in People, giving songs like “7/4 Shoreline” an amped-up, more kinetic live reading. Add to that a rare appearance of “Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl,” which was made possible by Millan's presence (she sang the record version). When it was over, Kevin Drew swept his increasingly motley crew away with a reminder to the crowd—and perhaps to himself—“Don’t forget: we are Broken Social Scene, and we did this together.” – KAITLIN FONTANA