Broken Social Scene at Field Trip Music Festival 2013

After a two year hiatus Broken Social Scene reunited to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of their label Arts & Crafts. Headlining Field Trip, the musical friendship collective played their 2002 album and fan favourite You Forgot It In People from front to back live for the first time. With anywhere from 11 to 18 people on stage at a time, the immense amounts of love and energy were palpable. This was only tripled by the fireball of fun that is Leslie Feist joining in on “Almost Crimes” and Torquil Campbell’s purple trumpet playing. While the entire album play through was emotional, it was the soft heart beat of a track “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl” that had us in tears. While Emily Haines was not in attendance, Amy Millan of Stars, Lisa Lobsinger, and AroarA’s Ariel Engle sang it stunningly. To say it gave us chills would be an understatement.

Once they wrapped up You Forgot It In People the night continued with the well loved hits “Superconnected”, “7/4 (Shoreline)” and “Fire Eye’d Boy”. All good tunes and good times that kept getting better and better. Just as Kevin Drew was introducing an unreleased song they were about to play next, titled “Jimmy and the Photocall”, the song’s subject AKA Metric’s James Shaw showed up having flown in from Phoenix Arizona just in time in join in. Catch a fan video of this perfectly timed moment below…

The looming 11pm sound curfew approached but not before some Kevin Drew stage antics, of which we adore him for. We yelled at the top of our lungs as per his request. “I’M SORRY!” “I LOVE YOU!” “I’LL CALL YOU LATER!” He reminded us that Toronto is our city. “It’s okay to have a support system,” he encouraged as the crowed yelled “Kevin Drew for mayor!” The evening closed up with “Texico Bitches” and “Meet Me In The Basement” both off their last album 2010’s Forgiveness Rock Record.

While there was no encore, we were left with two statements ringing in our head “We will always be your band” and the general Broken Social Scene / Arts & Crafts ethos to be kind. We’ll miss you BSS but you will always be our band and Toronto will always be our city. All we can do is be kind. Be kind. Be kind.