My God ..... it's full of STARS

On first glance as they wandered on stage, Canadian band STARS seemed more shlocky than stylish. From their album art work and one or two pics, to the overall lush production of their clever melodramatic pop songs, I had expected a more affected and serious and stylized bunch of indie folk. Yet my surprise was a nice shock. Suddenly they were more human. Torquil Campbell seemed shorter and more nebbish than what I had imagined. Nonetheless he was a compelling front-man, very theatrical. It's no surprise that he exists in IMDB as an actor as well as a songwriter. Amy Millan was not the fay affected indie princess that I thought she might be. She's wonky and quirky and sexy and seems very sweet too. Amongst the other members, there's the drummer who sported a Travis Bickle mohawk and novelty sunglasses, a bassist wearing a suit and hat and some sort of medal pinned to the lapelle, a thin lanky lead guitarist who seemed no older than 19 (the others seem to be in their mid to late 30s or beyond...) and a relatively low-key (key)boardist who wore a modest shirt and said nothing even though I believe he is the founding member of the band with Torquil. A band like STARS whose album production is extremely layered and plush can do one of two things in a live context. They can try to reproduce the album as a clone performance: this would involve a fair bit of sampling etc - which wouldn't be foreign to them as they began their career with a debut LP which was essentially electronic pop. OR they can go raw and embrace the live rock'n'roll re-working of their tracks. They chose the second option and it worked well for me. A few years back I saw one of the only other contemporary guitar pop bands that I love - The Shins - and I was thoroughly bored because all they did was produce a perfect regurgitation of their album tracks. There was no raw live spontaneity to it at all. STARS thankfully went the raw route. They were loose and rough around the edges but the basic foundations were there with all the memorable sweet melodic hooks that make some of their songs nothing less than pop masterpieces. Torquil wore a t-shirt that said "I miss Grant McClennan" and at a certain point gave a little speech explaining who the Go Betweens were and that we should buy their albums. At first I felt patronised but very quickly realised that most of the audience WAS as young as Torquil had assumed, so I quickly changed my reaction and appreciated what he was doing. I recommend STARS live and on record and I do hope they come back (as they promised). A very under-rated gem of a band.