Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Review: Sloan @ Bowery Ballroom


Sloan @ Bowery Ballrom - June 29th, 2011
Photo & Review by Francesca McCaffery

Boy, these guys in Sloan sure play fair. Each member of the twenty-year old Toronto-based quartet play, sing and compose their songs in equal parts--and switch duties and instruments onstage accordingly. Chris Murphy also appears to be one of the happiest, sanest guys in recent rock history. Wednesday night at Bowery Ballroom hundreds of diehard fans streamed in to clap, sing and hum along to the clean yet still scruffy band’s bouncy, kicky and sometimes (sort of!)  sexy pop songs, and put on a very decent show filled with old favorites and a few newer ones. The line-up is still astonishingly the same: Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland, Andrew Scott, and Jay Ferguson, with (I believe), Gregory Macdonald on keyboards (tucked away, behind the amps.)

Taking a tiny while to warm the crowd, they soon heated up with “Who Taught You To Live Like That?,” “Used To It,” “Crossing the Line,” and “She’s Slowing Down Again.”  “Plain To See,” with Murphy back again on vocals, really cooked. But the ultimate crowd-pleaser, judging by the audience’s worshipful reaction, was definitely “One Situation Or Another.” The boys, ever dutiful, came back onstage for two full encores, and the crowd left soaked in happy memories and warm beer, traipsing out into the humid NYC evening.

The blisteringly sizzling grit-rock duo Hot Kid opened up for Sloan, and boy, were they great. The aptly named singer Shiloh Harrison looks like the sexy baby sister of Juliette Lewis, and the drummer, Robbie Butcher III- well, with a name like that, you just know he’s going to tear it up on drums, need I say more. Check them out fast. You won’t be sorry you did.

Below, check out some videos of Sloan's performance from the Bowery Ballroom, as well as their performance the next night at the Knitting Factory...







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