Wednesday, December 17, 2008

my last Toronto show until the summer was...


Human Highway. Aka Jim Guthrie, grandson of Woody Guthrie, and Nick Thorburn, front man of band Islands and now defunct-Unicorns.

I've never been to the Tranzac before... but when we (Yahlehly & i) finally found the place (It's on Bloor! No, it's on Bathurst!) we entered, it just started snowing. there seemed to be two rooms, visible with people, guitars, listening. There were posters for Human Highway all over, but we didn't know where to go. Then I pushed open a door, right into the concert. It felt strange to see everyone else was in on the secret but us for those long seconds. But as we filtered through the hipsters, upon us was The Magic. They played a pretty sweet set, they looked like they were having fun, harmonizing nice and all, but I found a few too many moments to zone out.

Then it was time for Human Highway.. who in fact borrowed two of the members from the Magic. Brothers Geordie Gordon (front man) and Evan Gordon (who seriously looks like Ed Westwick, you know... Gossip Girl... Son of Rambow..) Anyway. The set was pretty great... for their first tour. Their first tour! And I got to see their first Toronto show. Sweet, eh?

Watch "The Sound"



They played most of the songs off of Moody Motorcycle. It was unfortunate that my favourite songs seemed more forced & awkward then some of the others played, but I didn't mind. Yahlehly whispered, "it's the band, not them."

Either way... it was just cool to see they were having fun. Guthrie and Thorburn have a brotherly, cousinly, kind of vibe to them. They didn't look at one another very often, so focused on their guitar strumming sychronization, but it was obvious they were very conscious of this baby project they've produced and how much they wanted it to go well.

Guthrie joked continually about his cats. "I've got to go home and feed them... pet them, you know?" Thorburn responded "Oh Jim, it's fine." Jim: "This isn't a very good place to be making a joke, is it?"
(Of course... my translation's probably not 100% accurate.. but you get the idea.)

Watch "Moody Motorcycle"


By the time their short set was over (I mean really, they only have one album's worth of material) and we exited (after waving farewell to Thorburn), there was a good amount of snow on the ground. We just looked at it for a moment... astonished that in two hours something like that would happen. Who's used to snow anymore?

After we got over the pretty sphere of Brunswick avenue... and trekked to Spadina, the snow more in our face than anything, we sat warming up in the subway car pondering the greatness of Human Highway's album cover. I got home... excited (to my surprise) to walk through new snow that was untouched. Pondered the subway yard in front of my house in its snowy wonder, and retreated inside. This was my last Toronto show... until it's warm outside again.

2 comments:

Highwaisted said...

hey! found your blog through your vids. did you get anything of the magic??

Jessica said...

hi highwaisted -- nope, unfortunately not. during their set i was stuck between some large&lame-looking dudes. glad you've found the blog though! =]