Is the Social Scene broken?

[photo from NYT]

I am typing this as a desperate ringing in my ears threatens to drive me criminally insane. That's what you get for sitting four rows from the stage as Broken Social Scene spent three hours jamming their rambunctious Canadian hearts out in downtown Ann Arbor. And it was sublime...

They've been called everything from a musical co-op to a network to a "tribe and a cult" (see this wonderfully written NYT article about the Toronto music scene in general and BSS in particular). With a revolving set of band members, they can have anywhere between 9- 15 people on any one track at the same time. Which makes for a great live show because you see the full range of instruments and creative vibe just explode synergistically. Today, I counted seven guitars, a keyboard combo, two drum-sets, four horns, one saxaphone, one trombone, several tambourines, one violin, the cow bells, and one harmonica. And sometimes simultaneously.

BSS does not have a sound- that's not what they do, that's not who they are. Which is what makes their music so great. One minute they sound like a folk-band straight out of North Carolina, another they are jamming as hard as rock bands come, and always, as Rachel says, subtly symphonic. This is clearly a function of the fact that each of the various members brings with them something to the music which becomes a different creation depending on who takes the lead. One of favorite tracks, Ibi Dreams of a Pavement (see video) starts of head-bangingly hard-rocking, but then has a violin solo in the middle, and crescendos to the blast of the brass instruments at the end. And Jude just finds the social dynamic of the band utterly fascinating, especially how it contributes to the organic, electic nature of their music.

And yet this could also be what may spell the premature death of what could be one of the greatest bands of our generation. There are just too many sensitive artistic souls for one stage to accommodate. Some splinters were already beginning to show in the concert tonight as lead singer Kevin Drew said something to the effect of how the band is messy, disorganized, and how this might be BSS's last concert. It certainly was the last performance of their 2006 touring season (which was why there was an almost epic tenor to the whole concert) but the way he said it and the tension that seemed to transpire between him and some of the other band members (on stage no less...) seemed to suggest that we might be the last people to see BSS perform together again, whatever together might mean for a band like that.

Tonight, amidst a sound system that performed beyond what the acoustics of the Michigan Theatre could support, copious amounts of alcohol consumption on-stage, and a near stampede when the audience was hauled up to bogey with the band, BSS played their hearts out. Everything from the ethereal Anthems of a Seventeen Year-Old Girl to Jude's favorite Handjobs for the Holidays was heart-renderingly and exquisitely delivered. The whole theatre was enraptured, swept up in the electrifying combustion of a group of people just coming together to make good music. And Jude, Rachel, Libby & I had the time of our lives.

Will Broken Social Scene tour again? Who knows?... But I'm glad they toured today.


[I couldn't find a video of their concert here tonight. Here's one of them performing at Berkeley. I think it suitably captures the euphoric energy that is so much a part of BSS, especialy tonight.]