Loney, Dear w/ The Guest Bedroom @ Lee's Palace

Upon seeing Loney, Dear at Lee’s Palace last night, one thing became really apparent to me…people MUST get to know this act. The show was one of the best shows (if not THE best) that I have attended in the last couple of years. I know that I lack some credibility considering the fact that I just made a very similar comment about the Peter Bjorn and John show from a few weeks ago. But Emil Svanängen, knows how to please a crowd, and his already stellar music becomes even more of a delight onstage.

The show opened with a local band known as The Guest Bedroom. Vocallist Sandi has a little bit of a Sleater-Kinney or Yeah Yeah Yeahs thing going on but it really is the instrumentation that I found most enjoyable. They have a slight art-house post-punk sound to them and what really threw me for a loop was the inclusion of saxophone. It shouldn't work but in a strange way, it did. For a relatively small crowd, the band really gave it their all, and I think for the most part, they won them over.

Sadly, the crowd grew only moderately for Loney, Dear. On the one hand it was good, because I was given more room to enjoy the show. On the other hand, it saddens me that the rest of the Toronto population had to miss this. They played just about every song from the Sub/Pop release “Loney, Noir” and Emil made good use of stage banter and crowd singalongs in order to keep us thoroughly entertained. The celebration of life that seemed to be displayed during the performances of “I Am John,” “The City, The Airport” and “Carrying A Stone” was supremely addictive. What a voice! And Emil is funny. Very funny. So funny in fact that it actually got to the point where just knowing he was going to say something had the audience chuckling. This had all of the ingredients of what makes a perfect show, and the way that the audience begged for a second encore was proof of this fact.

Downloads:
The Guest Bedroom – Fake Flowers mp3
The Guest Bedroom - We Need Trips mp3
Loney, Dear – I Am John mp3
Loney, Dear – The City, The Airport mp3

The Guest Bedroom on myspace
View my pics of The Guest Bedroom at Lee’s Palace on flickr.
Loney, Dear on myspace
View my pics of Loney, Dear at Lee’s Palace on flickr.