reIntonation

Oh Canadia!

I celebrated Brooklyn this weekend with a free concert in Prospect Park. Now I don't live in Brooklyn, but there must be many a Canadian there because this Brooklyn celebration had an awful lot of (insert stereotype here) canucks rawking the microphone. AND the one American who should have been in the mix was mysteriously replaced with one of the canuck's canuck nieces.

However, it's clear that God is down with Canadia because he turned the day's sweltering heat into a breezy dream of an evening just in time for them to take the stage. In spite of a generally lethargic crowd, The Sadies turned out some sugary alt-country goodness (I hadn't heard much of them before, but they had a sweet Jayhawks-y vibe).

Stars were quite possibly the most rag-tag group of dorky rockers I've seen in a long while. But from the midget Chris Martin lookalike to the lanky chick singer to the shirt-open-to-belly-button guido, I'll be damned if they weren't incredibly charming. Songs that were a bit wan on the album were playfully exuberant live.

The crowd finally got off their bums for The New Pornographers. Though I was concerned about the lack of Neko, AC's niece Kathryn Calder navigated her way through "Mass Romantic" and "The Laws Have Changed" admirably. Yeah, yeah, she can't belt it out quite like Neko, but it was nice to hear Kathryn and AC on equal vocal footing. They played quite a few tracks of their upcoming album as well as a personal favorite "Graceland" (off of Matador at 15). Killer chorus.

So though it can't compare to my favorite Canadia event of the year, I loved myself the Canadia/Brooklyn joyfest.

Check out photos and other reviews. Download "Graceland" here.

posted by clarkbar @ 7:22 PM