Broken Social Scene at Stanford 4/21/2011

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Photo: Brian Valdizno

Fresh off a performance at the Coachella Music And Arts Festival, Broken Social Scene played a much small–and colder–venue on Thursday night at Stanford University. Taking over a stage usually reserved for Zumba and the odd hacky sack get-together, the Canadian collective transformed the space just outside of Dinkelspiel Auditorium into a mini-festival offering to kick off Vision eARTh, the Farm’s first arts and sustainability festival.

Lead singer Kevin Drew called the night an “intimate affair,” before paying homage to the university, which he and his bandmates had spent wandering in the hours before the show. “You guys are very lucky,” he said, smiling under a pink beanie.

At Stanford, it seems that students could use that subtle pinch of a reminder from time to time. With temperatures wavering in the 70s and the seasons beckoning for an early summer, spring has brought with it good times and a burgeoning campus music scene. Fresh off their Hilltop Music Festival, Stanford Concert Network took on perhaps a more ambitious undertaking in booking the Coachella headliner–and nailed it.

With an elaborate set-up complete with a wall of speakers, backing lights and an elaborate mixing board, SCN held nothing back for Broken Social Scene. And the band obliged. Drew and co. opened with “KC Accidental,” which shares the name of the lead singer’s first project with guitarist Charles Spearin, before launching into Forgiveness Rock Record-favorite “Texico Bitches.” With a song partly directed as the “cocksuckers” of the oil industry, there was perhaps no better way to welcome Stanford’s first arts and sustainability festival.

Drew soon relinquished lead vocal duties, first to Apostle of Hustle’s Andrew Whiteman on a drum-heavy rendition of “Fire Eye’d Boy,” and then to band co-founder Brendan Canning, who showed off his rarely used windpipes on “Stars and Sons.” A reserved Lisa Lobsinger took over on the delicate “All To All” and then audience favorite “Anthems For A Seventeen-Year-Old Girl ” (“one for the ladies,” Drew quipped).

One of the more impressive moments of the night came with an extended version of “Superconnected” which featured a guitar-saxophone duel between Whiteman and multi-instrumental extraordinaire, David French. With Drew playing the mediator, the two went back and forth blasting solos to a crowd that couldn’t get enough horn play.  A cover of Modest Mouse’s “World At Large” also brought with it some smiles of familiarity, with Drew dedicating the song to those that needed to “get ready to go out into the real world.”

But with moments like on Thursday night, few Stanford students seemed like they were in a rush to go anywhere, much less the real world. The always-impressive instrumental closer, “Meet Me In the Basement” moved crowd members and even the band’s roadie, who excitedly joined the eight-piece after taking over Spearin’s guitar. The close was a false climax, however, as the crowd beckoned for one more. With no backstage space to escape, the band returned for an encore, as Drew provided dime-store novel life advice and Broken Social Scene saw off the night as consumate professionals.

Set List

KC Accidental

Texico Bitches

7/4 Shoreline

Fire Eye’d Boy

Cause=Time

Stars and Sons (download)

All to All

Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl

Superconnected

World Sick

Blackberry (Apostle of Hustle Cover)

World At Large (Modest Mouse Cover)

Meet Me In the Basement (download)

-Encore-*

Late Nineties Bedroom Rock For The Missionaries

Shampoo Suicide

*Thanks Adam P!