LIVE: Stars The Soundtrack For Makeouts Everywhere
Tuesday November 27, 2007 @ 03:30 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

Stars' Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan at the Phoenix on November 26, 2007. Photo by Carrie Musgave

November 26, 2007
The Phoenix
Toronto, ON
By Matt Littlefair

Montreal dream-pop sextet Stars rolled into the Phoenix on Monday night for the first of four sold-out shows. The band have a history of playing a chunk of shows all in one spot in Toronto. Two years ago it was Lee's Palace, this year marked a step up in terms of venue capacity.

The early part of Stars' set was mired in a horrifyingly crappy sound mix. The bottom end was so thick and heavy that it was distorted and amorphous, eradicating the instrumental nuances of tracks such as "Elevator Love Letter" and rendering show opener "Take Me To The Riot" nearly unlistenable. A handful of people standing in my vicinity started to loudly question why they'd bothered to venture out in the freezing rain and I was sadly finding it easy to identify with the sentiment. Luckily, somebody got a message through to the sound tech and, about a half-dozen songs in, the levels settled, save for the occasional tympanum-shattering blast of bass-heavy reverberation.

Stars played a substantial number of tracks from their latest effort, In Our Bedroom After The War, though material from 2004's Set Yourself On Fire drew the most feverish crowd response. The building crescendos of "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" elicited a wide-eyed singalong as co-vocalists Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan traded off brilliantly on verses full of venom and references to bridges in Montreal. Millan, in particular was in fine form. Her assured renditions of "Look Up" and the soft shuffler, "My Favourite Book," provided notable highlights for the night.

Where Stars succeed, both on stage and on record is in the creation of an atmosphere. The band serve up the height of self-aware melodrama. Melodrama isn't being used as a pejorative here, quite the opposite. Watching Millan, Campbell et al embrace the theatricality of the band's stage show is something that has to be experienced to be understood. Campbell's wildly charismatic and keenly aware that his music is the perfect soundtrack to every movie-land breakup, hookup and first kiss — it is the embodiment of those kind of hyper-romanticized ideals. More importantly, he and his bandmates did an exceptional job of conveying that to the audience, who were hyper-receptive in kind. They roared after nearly every song, even those bogged down in the aforementioned unfortunate mix.

If you were to use public displays of affection as some sort of measure of success, then the encore rendition of "Calendar Girl" gets 13 gold stars. Dozens of couples were either locked in some drunken embrace or just full-on making out like two teenagers in the back of their parents' LeSabre. To be fair, in some instances they actually were teenagers, but they were nowhere near a Buick.

If Monday night was any indication, next time the group stage an extended tour stop in Toronto, they're going to have to make it at the Kool Haus. If anything, they'll have to go even bigger than that.