By the time a band makes it to the Kool Haus, there is a good chance that you've already missed what was great about them. The venue tends to host either bands that have outgrown the smaller capacity clubs, or bands that could once fill a hockey arena but have gone too long without a decent single to attract anything but the die-hards. The Raconteurs have managed to do both in a single shot. Thursday night's show, featuring Jack White's other band, was originally scheduled for the Ricoh Colisseum, but was recently downgraded. The Ricoh website called it a "scheduling conflict," but since nothing else was on the events calendar, it would be a good guess to say the show didn't sell as well as was expected. The room was already almost full when backup band extraordinaire, The Sadies took the stage. Their opening set of surf-inflected country twang mixed old favourites as well as a few songs from their latest record, New Seasons . The Sadies are a Toronto institution and a must-see in cavernous club environments, but on this larger stage it is questionable whether their studied genre music resonated with the college crowd in Abercrombie and not-yet-throwback Strokes T-shirts. Was this a room full of a couple thousand of Toronto's most dedicated White Stripes fans? Do the Raconteurs have their own unique fan-base? Probably, and probably not, respectively. They are on tour in support of their second record, Consolers of the Lonely , an ...
Anytime
By the time a band makes it to the Kool Haus, there is a good chance that you've already missed what was great about them. The venue tends to host either bands that have outgrown the smaller capacity clubs, or bands that could once fill a hockey arena but have gone too long without a decent single to attract anything but the die-hards. The Raconteurs have managed to do both in a single shot. Thursday night's show, featuring Jack White's other band, was originally scheduled for the Ricoh Colisseum, but was recently downgraded. The Ricoh website called it a "scheduling conflict," but since nothing else was on the events calendar, it would be a good guess to say the show didn't sell as well as was expected. The room was already almost full when backup band extraordinaire, The Sadies took the stage. Their opening set of surf-inflected country twang mixed old favourites as well as a few songs from their latest record, New Seasons . The Sadies are a Toronto institution and a must-see in cavernous club environments, but on this larger stage it is questionable whether their studied genre music resonated with the college crowd in Abercrombie and not-yet-throwback Strokes T-shirts. Was this a room full of a couple thousand of Toronto's most dedicated White Stripes fans? Do the Raconteurs have their own unique fan-base? Probably, and probably not, respectively. They are on tour in support of their second record, Consolers of the Lonely , an ...