Change Of Heart Bring Back Memories

Horseshoe Tavern

Toronto, ON

on Jun 19 2009

Sarah Kurchak (CHARTattack)

06/22/2009 3:55pm

The last time I saw Change Of Heart play was at an all-ages matinee at The Shoe in 1997.

I was 15 years old and falling in love with the Canadian music scene. Everything about the experience was so new and exciting. Just being at the Horseshoe Tavern was thrilling enough. I'd spent the past couple of years reading about shows at the venue and listening to live Canadian Music Week broadcasts on CBC Radio 2 and walking in and sitting (yes, I was an infamous floor-sitter) under the Bye Bye Birdie poster on the ceiling was a dream come true.

Then, after opening sets from Shallow (or Shaller, or Shallow, North Dakota or whatever they were called that day) and By Divine Right, COH came on stage and blew my young mind.

Twelve years later, I found myself standing under that same ceiling, looking up at that same poster and hoping for that same old feeling. And when Ian Blurton walked on stage an announced to the crowd that he was "really fucking nervous," I realized that I was, too.

It's hard to replicate that same sense of unbridled giddiness and adolescent excitement for music in adulthood. Even the almighty Tricky Woo disappointed me the first time I saw them reunited in adulthood. That set had still been an ass-kicking piece of rawk, but it just wasn't as raw or as dangerous as youth and nostalgia had made the Woo experience the first time around. I desperately didn't want the same thing to happen with Change Of Heart.

Thankfully, any lingering nerves that Blurton may have had weren't apparent and any lingering doubts I may have had were erased by the time that the band tore into their opening song, "Circle Of Season."

Aside from a few minor lyrical missteps that only a real COH nerd could have picked up on, the only real sign of the passing of time from 1997 to 2009 was the growth of Bluton's bountiful facial hair.

If anything, time has only made Change Of Heart better. Separately, members Blurton, Rob Higgins, John Damon Richardson and Bernard Maiezza have spent the past dozen years playing with some of the hardest rocking bands in the country and that experience has brought a whole new energy to their show. Even the formerly staid (at least by COH standards) "It Should Be" became a driving force of nature in the reformed lineup's hands.

The breadth of the set was also welcome change from the old days. Tummysuckle and Steelteeth, the band's last two albums, were still heavily represented, but older material, including a sublime take on "Smile" also got a fair amount of attention. It was probably the most complete look at the band that has ever been offered and every moment of it, screw ups and all, was even more vital and exhilarating than it was the first time around.

Let's hope it's another 12 years before Change Of Heart grace the 'Shoe again. The world might not be able to handle that much rock.

Check out our photos from the show here.