Playing The Hits: Electric Six At Canadian Music Fest

By Less Lee Moore

With Ben Stevenson & The Wondertones/Hot Panda/Sweet Thing
Lee’s Palace, Toronto ON
March 13, 2010

For a band to reach an exalted position on my list of all time faves they must possess two qualities: wonderful musicianship and witty lyrics. Because they have consistently excelled in both categories, Electric Six have ascended quickly up my own personal charts over the last three years. Put another, less pedantic, way: they crack me up and they fucking rock.

Any band that I hold in such high esteem is also one that I will insist upon seeing in a live setting if at all possible. Since Electric Six have not played in Toronto since I started listening to them, I was thrilled to find out they were scheduled for a show during Canadian Music Week (or Canadian Music Fest, as it now seems to be calling itself). And since the show was during the Week/Fest, there were actually three opening acts.

Ben Stevenson & The Wondertones (formerly of Edmonton, now of Toronto) had a great soul and ska vibe, complete with horns. Anyone who didn’t enjoy themselves during their set probably just doesn’t like music.

Hot Panda (also from Edmonton) have a terrible band name, but they quickly won me over with their off kilter, post-punk pop charm, which was both raw and sweet, much of this emanating from singer Chris Connolly’s intriguing vocals, an odd mix of Mitch Easter and Mark E. Smith. Bassist Catherine Hiltz impressed me when she played trumpet and bass simultaneously at one point, while keyboardist Heath Parsons did the same with accordion and keyboards at another.

Toronto’s Sweet Thing was not at all what I expected. They were sort of glam, sort of Nick Gilderesque power pop, and a little bit of Scissor Sisters. I have not seen someone work a crowd or a microphone like singer Owen Carrier in a very long time and by the end of the set I was in awe of his vocal prowess and stage presence. Sweet Thing seems to be a band poised for imminent, huge success.

Soon after that set ended, Electric Six came on stage. Well, some of them.

Mysterious border crossing issues meant that The Colonel and Tait Nucleus would not present for the band’s set. Singer Dick Valentine explained to us that the latter band member had been bitten by a deer and contracted Lyme Disease. So he said they would start with “Synthesizer” as a “tribute” of sorts.

Despite the lack of two band members, and the fact that the song in question would not contain actual examples of its namesake, I was thrilled, as it’s one of my favorites by the band. And they did not disappoint! Electric Six was tight and loud and thoroughly awesome throughout. The Lieutenant Colonel, as Dick dubbed him, did a great job on guitar while Johnny Na$hinal (or “The White Wolf” as Dick kept referring to him) filled in the missing keyboard bits on guitar.

Led Zeppelin apparently wrote “The Ocean” to describe the crowds at their concerts; the audience at this E6 show may not have filled an arena, but they were no less intense. There was fist pumping, jumping, flailing, dancing, shouting, devil horns, screaming, sing along-ing, and even multiple incidents of honest-to-grunge crowd surfing.

In fact, during the band’s performance of “Improper Dancing,” an extremely drunk woman behind us started screaming and whooping, then tried to initiate some improper dancing of her own with an ersatz, one woman slam pit, only to have it turn into a full on fight with a nearby female fan, complete with punches to the face, hair pulling, and friends having to physically separate the two (they were eventually booted out of the club).

None of this phased the band. Dick Valentine is a true rock and roll character, and I fully expected him to live up to his reputation. He did, but it was even more hilariously enjoyable than I anticipated. He seemed drunk, but the beer bottle he hoisted up at the beginning of the show was mostly full. Shaun commented that he seemed like someone’s drunken uncle, with his twitchy clapping and somewhat befuddled-looking smiles.

But he reminded me of someone else. Although only there are only a few people reading this who might actually get the reference, the similarities between Dick Valentine and Midwest/New York/New Orleans legend Dale Ashmun are so eerie that I can hardly believe I never noticed it before.

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