Sunday nights in Toronto are normally pretty quiet, especially when the cold weather starts to creep in; folks tend to stay in resting from a hangover, mentally preparing themselves for another long week or perhaps recuperating from this year’s zombie walk. But last Sunday night, The Phoenix Concert Theatre was packed with people ready to dance and sway to the smooth and sexy sounds of Toro y Moi.
The show openers were an unexpected choice for Toro y Moi who is known for his participation in the growth of the “chillwave” genre, touring alongside artists with similar sounds like Caribou, Washed Out, Cloud Nothings, and Wild Belle. However, for this tour, Toro y Moi chose to perform with a band known as The Sea and Cake, an indie rock band that formed back in the mid 90’s. When the quartet hit the stage, many people in the audience, along with myself, were surprised to see a couple of hipster looking dads begin a set filled with jazz influenced indie rock and electronic sounds. Every song flowed beautifully into one another, requiring little reaction from the audience other than relaxing and truly enjoying the simplicity of their sound. The most notable song performances were “Harps”, “Window Sills”, and “Weekend”. After talking to one of the bartenders when their set ended, she filled me in on the fact that a large number of people came specifically to see The Sea and Cake. Needless to say these post-rock veterans shocked and entertained the crowd, starting off the night just right.
Toro y Moi graced the stage shortly following the immersive listening experience from the openers. With almost no introduction, he and his band mates jumped right into the song “Harm in Change” from his latest album Anything in Return. A little over half of his set was composed of songs from the same album, like popular dance, funk and soul tracks “So Many Details”, “Say That” (nominated for Innovation of the Year for the Youtube Music Awards) and “Rose Quartz”. The entire crowd was dancing, singing, grooving and thoroughly enjoying his magnificent performance. The sound in the venue was impeccable, which was both relieving and impressive as I’ve found the sound at the Phoenix to be hit or miss at past shows. Chaz Bundick (the man behind Toro y Moi) focused more on the technicality of his performance rather than interacting with the crowd. The misty smoke that engulfed Chaz and his live band and the funky light show came together to create a surreal and dreamy atmosphere.
The infectiously catchy songs from his 2011 album Underneath the Pine, made their way into the set list such as “Divina”, “How I Know” and “Still Sound”, which is arguably the best song on the record. From one song to the next, I craved more from Toro y Moi, dancing along to all my favourite songs like nobody was watching. I was really anticipating that Chaz would decide to play at least one song off his first studio album Causers of This, which contains some of the best songs Toro y Moi has ever released, but to my dismay he did not. In an interview with the Rolling Stones, Chaz mentioned that he made the album with the intentions of it never being played live. It would have been nice to hear “Talamak” or “Blessa”, but nevertheless the show was more than I expected it to be. The amount of talent and growth that Toro y Moi has developed over the last couple of years is incredible, not to mention the growth of his visually stunning afro. With a versatile and ever-changing sound, Chaz provides something new for his fans to enjoy and appreciate.
