Veteran Canadian power pop-rockers Sloan brought their energetic show into NYC on Wednesday night. Their one-of-a-kind two set show gave a packed Bowery Ballroom plenty of tunes to dance to. Pulling from their twenty-three year catalog, the band had plenty of jams to keep the audience going throughout the whole show; Up to twenty-seven songs I believe. Not bad for some veteran rockers who didn’t lose an ounce of energy throughout the night.
Currently on tour in support of their recent album release, Commonwealth, the band tore through new and old material as part of two different sets they had prepared for this tour.
The first hour and fifteen minute set was engineered around giving each member of the group two or three songs to play frontman for. Starting out was Andrew Scott, who started out with a bang, playing the live version of the seventeen-minute song ‘Forty-Eight Portraits’ off the new album on guitar before heading back behind the drums for the night. Then it was time for the proclaimed King of Shamrocks, Pat Pentland to take his turn leading the way for the band as he and his raunchy guitar leads as he played through the catchy ‘Unkind’, ’13 (Under a Bad Sign), and ‘Keep Swinging’.
Next up was the King of Diamonds for the night, Jay Ferguson, whose tenor vocals powered through the bands newer single ‘You’ve Got A Lot On Your Mind’, ‘Carried Away’, and ‘I Hate My Generation’ back from their 1994 album Twice Removed. Bassist, David Fricke look-alike, and King of Hearts for the night Chris Murphy closed out their first set with a few jams of his own including ‘You Don’t Need Excuses to Be Good’.
After a twenty minute intermission the band came back out to cover hits from their twenty-plus year career including ‘Take It Easy’, ‘On The Horizon’, ‘Blackout’ and closing out the set with ‘Cleopatra’, ‘The Other Man’, and ‘Money City Maniacs’.
They may be in their third decade together, but the group from Halifax hasn’t lost an ounce of energy or ability from their early days. They can still put on a great show performing their pop-friendly rock tunes that almost sound like a garage band meets somewhere in between Cheap Trick and Superchunk.
Article by: Tom Shackleford
