City and Colour, Machete Avenue – Live (March 24th, 2006)

It’s weird, the instant I walked into the Myer Horowitz Theatre, not only did I feel out of place, but 90% of the people there seemed out of place too. For you see, normally when you go to a theatre as fancy as the Myer Horowitz Theatre you expect to see sophisticated people in suits and ties going for a nice classic music performance or the like (of course, that’s just my opinion and you all know how often I’m wrong), what you don’t expect to see is hordes upon hordes of teenagers and university students. And while most were just your typical university student, there was a fair amount of emo boys and girls decked out, as always, in tight jeans, tons of makeup and jet black hair (with the tip dyed ever so lightly pink) combed for hours to look just as if they got out of bed. But when someone like City And Colour, which of course is Alexisonfire‘s Dallas Green’s solo project, is headlining, that’s to be expected. But before the shoeless Green took the stage, Machete Avenue came on to wow the crowd.

The two piece from London, Ontario put on an amazing set. They kicked it off with a new song as the entire stage was doused in darkness and one little spotlight shone one the lead singer from the bottom of the stage, and from that moment they had every single attendee’s attention. Oddly enough, they only played a few songs off their new EP, including Waterfall and The First Cuts (on which Dallas Green came on to sing with), the rest of their set consisted of new material from their upcoming full length, including Symphony Of Sleep (which was available on a free sampler after the show) and Young. The new songs sounded amazing, and I can’t wait to hear it. They wrapped up their show, gave out two roses, and at least fifty percent of the crowd went to go by their 5 dollar EP – that was just how convincing they were.

Next up was the person most people were there to see: Dallas Green’s City and Colour; and while I’m not a huge fan of his solo project (or his real band either) I was still excited to see how the show would turn out. And its safe to say, I left with a a smile on my face, because Green proved once again that he is a natural born performer.

He didn’t need any crazy tactics, he just came on with his guitar and played his heart out. He played everyone’s favorite songs, like Sometimes (I Wish), Comin’ home, Missing and of course Save Your Scissors – and he sounded exactly like he does on the recording. But that’s not what made the show so interesting and entertaining, it was, in fact, his entire persona which defined this performance. It was his in between song banter that really pushed the show to a new level, telling jokes, telling stories, and actually holding conversations with the crowd – and you could hear both sides of the conversation perfectly since it was so quiet. It was hearing the stories behind the songs that really brought them to life, it was watching him tune the “bane of his existence, the unwound g-string” between each song that made you smile, and even though you were in a room with 700 other people, you somehow felt like he was playing to you and your group of friends. And in the end, that is what makes a solo performer last, an ability to make the listener forget everyone else around them, and Green did just that.