Not To Be Trusted With Knives

Tokyo Police Club at the Commodore

April 25, 2011 by Beth

As I mentioned the other day, I won tickets on Miss 604.com to the Tokyo Police Club show at the Commodore on Saturday. I took my friend Lianna with me and, in addition to the show, our tickets also got us into a Meet & Greet backstage with the band ((We were supposed to go to the Sound Check, but I got a call earlier in the day to say that they couldn’t do that anymore, so we were invited to a Meet & Greet backstage instead.)).

Before the Meet & Greet started, Lianna and I grabbed some dinner – and I was quite disappointed to learn that The Commodore won’t serve you a side of fries. Seriously. They make fries, but you can’t buy them only their own – only with their burger! What gives, Commodore? Fortunately, Lianna happened to get the burger, which was ginormous and so she couldn’t finish her fries – so I did! Next we met up with my friend Theresa and her friend (as it just so happened that they were also at the show), but then Lianna and I went off to the Meet & Greet and after we were done that, we didn’t see them again, which was not all that surprising given that it was a sold out show, so the place was packed!

For the Meet & Greet, we were told to meet up at the door to the backstage, where we were given “Special Experience” badges and let in to the backstage area ((FYI – The backstage area isn’t nearly as nice as I would have expected! Pretty boring, in fact.)). The band seemed like a pretty nice bunch of guys, but holy awkward situation Batman ((I later talked to another woman who was also at the Meet & Greet and she said that she’s been to several of these and they are always awkward)). No one had any idea what to do, so everyone just introduced themselves and made awkward chit chat (during which I, of course, insulted the Toronto Maple Leafs – given that they are from Toronto – and they conceded that yes, they Leafs are, in fact, beyond all hope) and then we did some awkward photos and got the hell out of dodge.

The one thing I did learn from the Meet & Greet was that after this tour, the band is going to stick around Toronto to work on their next album. They haven’t decided what studio to record it in, but they all live in T.O., so that’s where they’ll be writing. So, yeah, you heard it here first, y’all.

The show itself started off with opening bands Toronto-basedDinosaur Bones:

and then Vancouver’s own Said the Whale:

both of whom were pretty good. Note: I am not a music critic and “they were pretty good” is probably the most insightful review you can get out of me. For what it’s worth, I did just go to iTunes and buy Said the Whale’s album. So that’s something.

Then Tokyo Police Club came on ((I would like to point out that my photo taking was less than ideal, such that I didn’t even get one good shot of all of TPC on stage. I was spending more time enjoying the music than worrying too much about photos though, so I think that’s OK.)) – and I really liked them too.

For the encore, TPC came out with this giant cat:

And then k-os ((Who I also didn’t managed to take a picture of, given my aforementioned half-assed photo taking.)) showed up too and they did a cover of Kayne West’s Runaway. Here’s a video of it that someone else took and put up on YouTube ((The sound’s not the greatest, but what can you do?)):

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