Jason Collett & the Dears @ Harbourfront

What I love most about summer in the city is all the free music you can check out in downtown T.O. Last month's Island Show and NXNE festival had pretty much assured me that I can't spend too much on the 'musix' for the next little while, so I'd better get in all the free stuff I can. That's why even the rain couldn't keep me away from the Jason Collett and Dears show on Saturday.

Sometime Broken Social Scene-ster and alt-country family man Jason Collett got the show started off in an admirable fashion. His calm, cool and collected demeaner certainly made for a compelling performance. He opened the show with the slightly BSS-ish 'Fire', which was the perfect way to showcase his immediate charm that would guarantee to melt the hearts of all in attendance. He continued strumming through most of the songs off of last year's magnificent "Idols of Exile" CD, with the highlight being a rousing rendition of 'I'll Bring The Sun', a song that seemed even more appropriate given the weather conditions that evening. He even brought his teenage son along to play some rhythm guitar. What a way to spend summer vacation.

Buy "Idols Of Exile" here.

Myspace page

The Dears are a band that I've admired for a few years, but never really appreciated just how great they are live until Saturday night. They opened with a few songs from their stripped down upcoming "Gang of Losers" CD (which I managed to have an advanced sneak listen to and although I'll officially review it later, would I be spoiling things to say that it may just be the album of the year so far ?) New songs like 'Death or Life We Want You' and 'Whites Only Party' translated magnificantly to the live stage. And the chill-inducing 'Lost In The Plot' brought the unusually subdued crowd to ther feet. Another captivating moment was the encore, where the band showed extreme courage by performing an 8 minute proggy jam which ended with vocalist Murray Lightburn quipping, "You didn't know we had it in us, did you?" I didn't, but I'm glad I found out.

Hate Then Love mp3

More new mp3's are found here.

The Dears myspace page.

Also I posted a bunch of pics I took from the Jason Collett show and a few from the Dears show here. More Dears pics will come up but I have to wait till next month seeing as Flikr only lets you post so many pics per month unless you pay for more and I'm cheap so...