"This song rocks pretty hard," said a polo-shirted Carl Newman from the Horseshoe Tavern stage, by way of introducing a song mid-set. "So I want to tell you a little bit about it." He paused. "Actually, this song rocks so hard it cannot be put into words. It needs to be expressed musically."
The New Pornographers took the rock pretty seriously during their one-night occupancy at the 'Shoe. While in town to perform opening duty for Scottish fop-rockers Belle and Sebastian, Toronto's Edge 102 station roped the B.C. band into playing a free show for Edge listeners (which proves once and for all that even lousy 'best new alternative' radio stations are good for something). Those who were unlucky in scoring tickets to the next night's B&S show (or those who already had tickets to Metric, natch!) were thankful for the opportunity to see a band on the rise in such a tiny, intimate, fantastically scuzzy venue / Toronto institution. With Twin Cinema littered all over ‘best music of ‘05' lists, this may have been Toronto’s last chance to see the Pornographers in a small venue for some time.
Live, the New Pornographers were a five-man, one-lady musical crowbar to the head: nothing flashy; incredibly solid; gets the job done; packs a hell of a wallop. Gimmickry and showmanship were eschewed in favour of directing all available energy into their amplifiers; to see all six Pornographers nail every start and stop in the band's jerky, syncopated set list was nothing short of impressive. The band clearly preferred to let their jackhammer-precise performance speak for itself. No liberties were taken with the studio arrangements of their songs - those looking for extended noise jams were out of luck - but the lack of variation hardly brought the show down.
Often, the absence of showiness and stage banter worked to offset the songs themselves, such as when Newman mumbled, "This is a song called 'Miss Teen Wordpower'. Here it comes." into the mic a split-second before Kurt Dahle began to make the crowd jump with a sudden and startling assault on his drums. When the band did take a breather, Newman and Dahle mostly took turns heckling the hecklers: "What? We have no song called 'Low Descent'! We can play 'Slow Descent', though..." "What do you mean, the Belle and Sebastian show was too expensive? It can't have been more than a hundred bucks." "Support the underground economy. It keeps this country alive. Buy scalped tickets and pot." "Meet me after the show! I will kick you in the head!"
Queen-of-the-Pornos Neko Case was unfortunately absent due to preparations for her forthcoming release, Fox Confessor Brings The Flood. This wasn't a total loss for the band, however, as it gave keyboardist Kathryn Calder (a cross between Audrey Hepburn and the Organ's Katie Sketch, with a little bit of her Uncle Carl Newman thrown in for good measure) an opportunity to shine. She didn't disappoint; past Neko showcases "Mass Romantic" and "The Bleeding Heart Show" flourished when run through Calder's pipes, replacing Case's light country twang with an high, pure '80s girl-band alto well-suited to the Pornographers' brand of keyboard-pop. Behind Calder, meanwhile, was the band's secret weapon: drummer Dahle, whose manic grin and boozy demeanor played counterpoint to the explosive, all-business drumwork that was happening from the neck down.
In terms of how the songs translated to the stage, one could have experienced roughly the same thing playing The Electric Version at home on full blast (with the drums turned up really, really high in the mix). But on that Friday evening at the Horseshoe, showgoers got a chance to see a sweet band for free (sans a crappy opener), mooch off a radio station, buy some excellent T-shirts, witness Carl Newman's red hair and lisp in full effect, and - most importantly - catch a buzz off the undeniable energy the band was putting into the performance. Simply put, the Pornographers rocked; so much so, in fact, that it may not be possible to put into words, and may need to be expressed musically.
-Natalia Manzocco
