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LIVE: Sam Roberts Band Teach Panic At The Disco A Life Lesson
Friday May 16, 2008 @ 11:00 AM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff
May 15, 2008
MTV Canada's Masonic Temple
Toronto, ON
by Aaron Brophy
There were outwardly two major purposes for the Sam Roberts Band's performance at MTV Canada's Masonic Temple concert hall on Thursday night. The first, and official reason, was to tape the performance for future playback on the television network, and the second, to field test songs from the band's new album Love At The End Of The World on a sample-size of Toronto fans and media. That would've been lots under normal circumstances, but there was a third dynamic thrown in to the mix, an elephant in the room named Panic At The Disco.
Panic were also going to be performing and taping a set that night immediately after Roberts, and as the trill audience screaming triggered by MTV hypemen indicated, this whole evening was more about Brendon Urie and his Las Vegas mates than it was about the Sam gang.
The circumstances could've been daunting for the Roberts and his crew — heck, they were even forced to use only the front half of the stage, much like the opening band at arena rock shows, owing to all of Panic's gear packed in the back half — but the Montreal band's assured rock 'n' roll spadework not only helped them overcome these obstacles, but (hopefully) provided the At The Disco crew with a valuable life lesson.
Roberts' new record is more tempered and song-oriented than the sonic freakout of last album, Chemical City, but you'd have never known that from the lead-off one-two punch of the title track and "Fixed To Ruin." "Fixed To Ruin" was far more propulsive than I gave credit to the recorded version. My initial impression was that it was a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club knock-off, but live it's clearly something far more dynamic, with solid spots of harmony and groovy organ punches to elevate the whole thing.
Roberts' dips into back catalogue were admittedly rare, but "Bridge To Nowhere" resonated solidly with the Panic crowd and "With A Bullet" was played with all the passion that a timeless heart-on-sleeve confession should.
The old-man-on-his-front-lawn condemnation of "Them Kids" didn't quite hit. That's probably because when you write a song about kids not knowing how to dance to rock 'n' roll, you'd better be creating the single greatest rock 'n' roll dancin' song ever to back your argument up. This isn't it.
Far more effective were the mid-tempo numbers "O Maria" and the incisive set-capper "Stripmall Religion." Devoid of self-righteous finger-wagging, those songs are free just to be simple, deep stories.
Throughout their set, Roberts and his band threw themselves into their songs, the lead singer's single-minded focus, in particular, being a thing to behold (and one which, if the MTV monitors were any indication, was complimented by frequent camera close-ups on his now beardless jawline). Head down, mouth pressed to microphone, Roberts rarely to time to look up, let alone pander to the audience. What could have come across as aloof definitely felt more about being self-assured, though. It was a genuine, straight-up rock 'n' roll performance. Think Jerry Lee Lewis setting his piano on fire, except in a far more polite and Canadian way.
And here's where Panic could learn something. They're already arena-filling world champions for The O.C. demo, but throughout their rapid upward climb they've exhibited a borderline manic need to shapeshift. Their desperate grasping at artfulness was clear in Urie's past puppy dog following of The Dresden Dolls and Panic's resulting carnival stage show. Their new album Pretty. Odd. has the band now eschewing the makeup and contortionists in favour of the plain vests, white dress shirts and the Constantines-styled lunch pail rock they displayed last night (except for the songs led by guitarist Ryan Ross that sound more like Wings). So it shouldn't come as much of a surprise if Panic start rocking Canadian tuxedoes on their next tour. Just know that credit for it should probably go to their chance encounter with a bunch of hosers called the Sam Roberts Band.
 
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