By Peter Quincy
Photo credit: Peter Quincy Ng
It’s another one of those cheap and lousy Mondays with the dread of a full work week looming ahead. As I approached Toronto’s infamous Wrongbar at approximately 9:30PM, a handful of around twenty people are waiting outside with still an ample half-an-hour left before doors open. It was a bit odd considering how there were so many people lining up with show tickets still available for sale. The room seemed quite sparse with Toronto’s resident indie DJ Vaneska spinning at the booth and nothing on stage, but a laptop marked with “YES” in fluorescent orange tape belonging to openers Yes Giantess.
The Boston quartet, Yes Giantess finally made it to stage after 10 something playing a roughly six-to-seven song ensemble. Filled with light and fluttery synthesizer and sugary pop vocals Yes Giantess proved a fitting opener for Little Boots on the first date of her North American tour. After they left the stage, a long crowded wait began to stir as the club slowly was filling up with the warmth of human bodies.
Little Boots’ performance was hit with slow setup with the crew slowly placing a keyboard here and there generating cheers from the fans before leaving them to stagnate again. Fortunately enough it was good enough for Vaneska to keep flipping records going through Kid Sister, La Roux and Passion Pit to name a few tracks. Eventually Victoria Hesketh’s (Little Boots) tenori-on made it to the stage flashing Little Boots across its LED screen generating a few camera flashes. However it would be roughly twenty minutes later at 11:35PM before Victoria would finally be spotted moving through the crowd onto the stage.
As the fans roar with applause as Victoria hits the stage, I get a feeling as why she was named after Caligula or rather Little Boots. As I stood in awe of how utterly adorable the miniature Little Boots is dressed in a silky black dress with bedazzled with 80s geometric designs and a rather showy set of black leather knee-length roman sandals. With the finally equipment in place, Victoria grabbed her stylophone and the room suddenly turned silent with the backing track croaking “bump yep, bump yep yep” and a cowbell to accompany. Suddenly the synths join in and Victoria grabbing her faulty stylophone dances to the melody before kicking off a sped-up, more aggressive version of” Meddle” complete with live percussion. With the crowd literally on their feet, Victoria carried on with “Earthquake” and “Click” with crowd participation at unmeasurably high levels singing along to every word that came out of her mouth.
By the time “New in Town” hit the microphone, Little Boots exclaimed that this was her first time and Toronto and was worried about the reception that she would receive on the first leg of her Illuminations Tour. There was no doubt at all that she could definitely feel the energy, as many of these fans waited a long time to see British pop princess Victoria Hasketh. Even resident DJ and Wrongbar club owner Nasty Nav waited two years alone to book this act. With anticipation high, the show was already halfway through and Victoria played on her with scientifically correct “Mathematics” and “Symmetry” as she lightly pranced around the stage.
Although Philip Oakey of the Human League was not there to provide the vocals to “Symmetry” as in the record “Hands”, the male band members all chipped in to fill in the void in male vocals; a decent and respectable improvisation. The unreleased track “Magical” highly reminiscent of Anita Ward’s “Ring my Bell” followed before getting to closer “Remedy”. Although Victoria at the end complained about the malfunction of her Tenori-on, no one seemed to really notice and she said for her last song that she wanted everyone to join in. As she said I want you to all sing “Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh” the fans cheered and she laughingly chastised the fans saying “I didn’t say Woo!”.
As Little Boots finished with a fine closer, waving her arms and pushing away slowly as she sung she walked off stage only to turn around less than a minute later returning with classy synth-rich cover of Freddie Mercury’s “Love Kills”. Finally she ended off with “Stuck on Repeat” where she clapped along with the tambourine while thrusting her palm into the air. The percussion started drumming faster and Little Boots started slapping the air as if she was hitting the cymbals and as soon as the synths died down Victoria said thank you and quickly left the stage.
With fans tired yet excited from what was a memorable and energetic performance from Blackpool’s Little Boots, an overwhelming majority quickly dissipated as the work week was raging by. Although they had work to go to the next morning, the two-year wait for Victoria Hesketh was well worth the wait.
Photo Credit: Peter Quincy Ng
SETLIST:
MEDDLE
EARTHQUAKE
CLICK
NEW IN TOWN
MATHEMATICS
SYMMETRY
MAGICAL
REMEDY
LOVE KILLS
STUCK ON REPEAT
Here is some video for you:
Last 5 posts by Peter
- Politics, Poetry and Music: My Conversations with Francisca Valenzuela - March 15th, 2010
- My Favorite Videos of 2009: The Weird, The Funny, The Fantastic. - January 15th, 2010
- Døing the Americas: Getting to Meet France’s No.1 Indie-Music Duo - November 15th, 2009
- Just Dø It: France’s Top Indie Duo Døes Toronto - October 15th, 2009
- St. Vincent Part 1: Somewhere between Heaven and Hell - August 15th, 2009
