Last night I was fortunate enough to see the band Wild Flag at Lee’s Palace here in Toronto. Wild Flag is a new band from Portland comprised of members from Sleater-Kinney, Helium and The Minders. Being a huge Sleater-Kinney fan, I think that I have everyone of their albums in one form or another, I couldn’t wait to see what Wild Flag would have to offer. About a month ago Wild Flag released their self-titled-debut album, one that I had been waiting the entire summer to hear. It did not disappoint. Right from the opening song “Romance” I was hooked. I have listened to Wild Flag for basically the entire past month straight. It has lived on my record player, and was always the last album I had listened to when I switched on my iPod. So, you can imagine my excitement when I found out that Wild Flag had a stop on their tour in Toronto. I bought my ticket and then I waited for the show to finally arrive.
That brings us to last night. Lees’s Palace is a pretty good venue. I’ve seen quite a few bands there and have never been disappointed with the sound. The only drawback is that I have a hard time seeing above the crowd…I’m only 5’ 2’’. However, last night this didn’t matter. I, at first, was sitting off to the side with a couple of friends where I would be able to see the whole stage, but about ten seconds into Wild Flag’s first song I knew that I couldn’t sit still for this show. I jumped up and headed over to where my brother and sister-in-law where standing. From that moment until the final chord was strummed, I danced.
Wild Flag was amazing. I honestly don’t think that I can accurately describe how good they were. My best bet might be to tell you listen to their album and then image that live only better. I’ve never seen a band live before that only has one album out, so it was a really cool experience to get to see Wild Flag play all the songs from their album. Each member had high energy and there wasn’t any messing around telling stories, they thanked the audience and continued to play. It was solid rock for an hour and I loved every minute of it.
As a fan of Sleater-Kinney I have to take a moment to say how awesome it was to get the chance to see Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss live. I only had the opportunity to see Sleater-Kinney once. They opened for Pearl Jam back in 2005, but I had really only just heard of them and hadn’t yet fully developed my love for them. It was so cool to finally get to see the erratic way that Carrie plays live, complete with leg kicks and the occasional windmill. Janet is probably one of the best drummers out there today, something that was proven last night, and it was awesome getting to watch her look like something out of an 80’s music video with the fan blowing her hair and the red light shining on her.
To wrap things up Wild Flag puts on one great show, and if you ever get the chance to see them live you definitely should. Until then click on the link below to see the music video for one my favourite songs “Romance”.
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