Broken Social Scene - London Camden Barfly - 29/9/05
4/5
By: Toby L
Not just safety in numbers - genius, too. The re-arrival of nine-strong, Canadian collective Broken Social Scene to British shores makes for some understandable commotion. Rife talk of tickets for tonight's impeccably modest Camden Barfly gig going for £100.00 (a rumour left unfounded), it's convenient to forget that BSS have been peddling this sort of chaotic, expansive, euphoria-strewn noise-ambient for some years.
And like local townspeople The Hidden Cameras, Godspeed..! and Arcade Fire, all wont to a rich bastion of multi-collaborators, the sheer volume and range of onstage members tonight conjures a sense of true trajectory in their desirable tussle between tunes and arty abandon; beautifully, it feels like it could fall apart at any second.
'This is our reunion show,' deadpans singer and general ringleader Kevin Drew in reference to their belated return to the Barfly, home of their original, rammed, debut UK show two years back (itself a lost 'legendary' performance, which, even then, bore the hallmarks of something vital). Then an abrupt 'Here we go,' and so the start of this cluttered, free range clatter - into the splintered soul of 'Lover's Spit'.
Thus ensues a sprawling, 80-minute wig-out of reverb-heavy vox, violin, brass and synth, all intricately interlocking with personality and poignant sincerity from the performers crammed onstage. Guitars are poised skywards during charging instrumental 'KC Accidental', and a robust fare of spiky, dirgey rumbles (or all the 'up' songs as the band would have it) line up in succession - 'Cause=Time', 'Fire Eye'd Boy' - solace of something greater beyond found in a harmonic, beauteous '7/4 (Shoreline)', cut in half when feedback from the mass sonic-collage sounds, for the first time tonight, slightly untoward. The band halts. 'Erm, here's the second half of the song.' Then launch back into ramshackle, heart-wrenching racketeering in a seamless unison.
Yet for all the conscious, frenetic assaults, 'Scene gigs are a severely communal experience - full of events: guitarist Charlie proffers us a pro-Greenpeace demo for energy conservation (chip grease can fuel the world's cars, apparently); bassist Brendan passes a fiver through the hands of the audience to order a pint of Murphy's from the bar; Kevin leaps off the stage into the audience to inaugurate a hand-clap frenzy during the turgid bass of 'Stars & Sons'; and we're even awarded at least one cocktail-jazz interlude.
Ferocious cacophonies. Enthralling dynamics. And culminating in a dance waltz that's not far off 'Billie Jean' (if originally arranged by Four Tet). This time 'round, let Broken Social Scene claim you.
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