Broken Social Scene Live @ Harbourfront. Photo credit: Ryan O Photo

While Toronto’s music scene has been flourishing as of late, with Arts & Crafts bands like Ohbijou and Still Life Still, Broken Social Scene still remains the city’s (and the label’s) treasure, and they’ve proved that time and time again, not only with their impressive live shows, but with their dedication to the city in general.

With the cancellation of the pricey Centre Island show, due to the Indy Race being on the same day, the band quickly announced they’d be doing a free show to make up for their inefficiency in planning. Despite the failure in organization with the previous show, the free set was certainly far from that. In fact, nearly all of Broken Social Scene’s primary contributors were present, with Leslie Feist, Emily Haines, Amy Millan, and Lisa Lobsinger all making appearances for the first time in years as a band. The show also included several gems which they rarely perform, such as the brilliant “Bandwitch”, and a few new (or previously unreleased) songs, such as “New Country” and “Meet Me in the Basement”.  Considering the two and a half hour length of the show (much longer than they were supposed to play), they also had plenty of time to play material from other projects of contributing members, such as Andrew Whiteman’s Apostle of Hustle, with “Soul Unwind”, Emily Haines’ Metric, with “Gimme Sympathy”, and Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning’s solo material, with “Frightening Lives” and “Love is New”, respectively. The collective also paid their respects to Martin Streek, DJ and one of the hosts of 102.1 The Edge’s radio show in Toronto, thanking the man who “died for rock & roll” for his contribution to Toronto’s music scene, and especially for promoting their own music.

Making an effort to provide the best possible performance at one’s concert is one thing, and while the band certainly did that, their contribution to Toronto in general surpasses that of any band the city has been a home to.  It’s about time a bigger local act showed some enthusiasm, so the band should be praised not only for their excellence as musicians, but simply as citizens of Toronto – not because they did what was expected of them, but what was right.