Stars
Live Review: Stars
Thekla, Bristol
Wednesday 30th January 2008
By Meg Rowell
You might not have heard much about Stars, Canada's indie-pop darlings with four critically acclaimed albums under their belts, but when you do, you might just fall in love with them. Formed in Toronto in 2000 by vocalist Torquil Campbell and keyboardist Chris Seligman, the pair soon added singer/guitarist Amy Millan, bassist Evan Cranley and drummer Pat McGee to the mix, signing to the Arts and Crafts label in 2004, which just happens to be home to Canadian alt-rockers Broken Social Scene of which Campbell, Millan and Cranley are also members.
Tonight's show at Bristol's Thekla, the midpoint of Stars' current UK tour, is kicked off by A&C label mates Apostle Of Hustle (yet more BSS members), before the band everyone's waiting for finally take to the stage before an eagerly awaiting crowd.
Thrusting into action with the dreamy tones of The Night Starts Here, the second track off last year's In Our Bedroom After The War album, Stars are in fine form. Their sound has an ethereal quality, Millan and Campbell's vocals glide over one another with effortless ease, while the instrumentation shimmers behind them, building and rising into subtle crescendos, throbbing with intense rhythms and subtle nuances.
The majority of tonight's set has been taken from the aforementioned In Our Bedroom After The War, and yet manages to remain vastly eclectic; the sweetly sung Window Bird contrasts sharply with the funk-fuelled The Ghost of Geneva Heights and the feisty Bitches in Tokyo. Personal aches with a sad kind of beauty, while Take Me To The Riot is the kind of thumping, driving tune that has made their music so popular on American TV shows of late.
Sounding like a First Of The Gang era-Morrissey, Campbell gets a chance to show off his vocal abilities with Barricade, a ballad of tear-inducing quality with a strangely British feel to it, but it's when Campbell and Millan get together that the real magic happens. Plunging into the title track from In Our Bedroom After The War, the pair beautifully demonstrate their capacity for gloriousness, as the song swells to a splendour of choral crescendos, all crashing cymbals and sweeping soundscapes.
Rounding off the night with Calendar Girl, an evocative, spine-tingling offering from 2005's Set Yourself On Fire, the set is over all too soon. Joining the crowds as we file our way out of the venue, it somehow feels a bit sad, empty, like the feeling you get after watching a great movie. Tonight, Stars moved us, and now we're back in the cold bleakness of reality, feeling the weight of what's just happened. It's a little depressing but also a testament to Stars' effortless ability to inspire, enthuse and excite an audience, however cold it is outside.
For more information about Stars, including any forthcoming tour dates, see their page here on Ents24.
