Ted Leo and his (fully certified?) Pharmacists (Chris on drums, Dave on bass) didn't waste much time getting on stage and getting the show started. They got all their shit together, microphones checked, amps connected, and they hit the first note of My Vein Ilin somewhere around a quarter to midnight.

And they rocked.

Pretty much any positive musical adjective I can think of could apply, but I will pick and choose for the sake of time and length constraints. Around the time of All That You Can't Leave Behind's release, one of our friend Bono's stock quotes was about joy in music: how it's easy to sing about broken hearts and wasted lives but much more difficult to deliver a compelling song that has true joy at its core. Well, Ted Leo makes it seem pretty easy. And profound. The well of the high spirits as the beat pumps along at full force and the melodies leap deliriously about is truly spectacular. The songs are not all of a single mood, they bend from menacing to tragic and angry to euphoric, but they constantly maintain the pure vitality of flight and energy that generally permeates great music (at least the kind I find myself partial to). It puts a smile in your heart a bob to your head. Moreover, the musicianship is technically masterful; intricate, complex, and inspired. There were moments where it seemed as if there was a drum solo, a guitar solo, and a bass solo taken and layered on top of eachother to create a beautiful, ordered cacophony. And on top of that some really poetic, insightful, wise, and bigworded lyrics.

But I already knew all of that from listening to the albums. And I was of course hoping that all of that would translate well to the stage. I should have known. Because the band is so fervent and direct, the music works ridiculously well live, and surpasses the album versions pretty easily just from the raw energy smashed out through the songs on stage. They played a very great majority of all the songs from both The Tyranny of Distance, and Hearts of Oak. Ted himself is quite the showman, and whether he gives the songs energy or they give it all to him, he has a lot. He hopped/danced around a lot and gave the lyrics his all. Chris was pretty manically banging on the skins as well, though Dave and his bass was a much more passive affair, with his fingers doing most of the movement. Ted was also very talkative between songs without ever once resorting to the tired, overused, and potentially annoying "Is everyone having a good time?...I'm sure you can do better than that!" routine. He referenced homestarrunner and seemed surprised no one else got the reference, asked for an update on what happened in our election cause he wouldn't hear about it in the vacuum that is the United States (the band was last in Canada about a month ago), and though he claimed he couldn't take sides, he hinted through mime and mouthing that he would support NDP if it came down to it. He also talked about the new album (which they played 4 or 5 songs from), mentioned they'd likely be back in the fall in support of it (!!!!), gave the Blues festival several mentions, and asked the audience which song they'd like to hear at least once. At one point Dave's bass completely stopped working during the middle of a song and when it became obvious that it wouldn't be fixing itself quickly, it came down to The Reputation to lend a hand and some equipment. It turns out that the picture I snapped of the members of both bands conferencing at the edge of the stage was the last my memory card had room for, I was surprised this had happened so quickly until I realized that they'd already been on stage longer than your average club show headliner. In order to negate extended dead air while the bass was being, Ted Leo played a solo number (I think it was Ghosts, but I'm not totally up on all the song titles) and then as I was about to yell out a cover of Ewan MacColl's Dirty Old Town as a suggestion (they've released it on the Tell Baleary Balgury is Dead EP), Monsieur Leo said something along the lines of "This song could really be about any city..." and then played Dirty Old Town. This made Damon very happy. I really do hope my occasional loud singing along didn't completely ruin the videorecording being done by the young woman next to me. Eventually the bass problem was resolved and they got back into the thick of things.