The Good, The Bad, The Queen – Live (March 11th, 2007)

“This band was just thrown together. They don’t even have any shirts for sale!” I overheard someone say, walking by me to smoke outside the Kool Haus, Sunday night before The Good, The Bad, and the Queen’s first gig outside of the UK. Being thrown together is usually how super groups come to be, but in this case it is the sound the makes TGTBTQ super. TGTBTQ member’s consists of Blur and Gorillaz front man Damon Albarn, Clash bassist Paul Simonon, former Verve guitarist Simon Tong and Afrobeat pioneer and Africa 70 drummer Tony Allen.

The Toronto crowd was as ranged and diverse as the band playing. Hipster’s, nerds, real estate agents, crusty punks who thought they were going to hear Guns of Brixton, and of course boys who like girls, who like girls, who like boys (and I think you get the picture).

The stage was dressed like an old London pub, with a piano in the corner draped by Union Jack, bottles of wine, and tiny red and blue flags. The backdrop was a painting of an old market setting in London. Nerves flared, as dub music played in the background. You could just tell something really special was about to go down.

As the lights came up a sexy string quartet began to play, but I couldn’t help but be in awe of iconic Paul Simonon. He walked onto the stage ignoring Toronto’s anti smoking bylaw looking as stylish as an Italian hand bag, grabbed his bass, and began plucking the intro to the “history song”. His bass echoed triumphantly through all 27,000 square feet of the Kool Haus.

The band sounded tight, and with drummer Tony Allen’s percussion skills they sound large. It was after they played the first four songs consecutively, I realized the band was performing the entire album top to bottom. The band’s front man Damon Albarn did most of the talking between songs, which also proved as informative as he gave us all a lesson about being fitted, caring, and steaming a top hat.

Despite the band’s dark, mellow, and moody balladry the live energy was there, mainly lead by Simonon who was never static, lurking and swinging hiss bass like it was 1977. Not to be outdone was Tony Allen’s drumming showcase during “Three Changes”. I have never heard beats being pounded like that, and the talent of this group was blatantly evident. Throughout the performance the band experimented with instruments and sounds and closed the show with it’s title track TGTBTQ complete with an intense six – minute instrumental that left the crowd speechless, the band sweaty, and everyone in the crowd wishing the album had a few more tracks.

Please don’t ask me to ever try to describe the sound of TGTBTQ. I am not sure anyone really can. These musicians came together for whatever reason, and created a beautiful, original, and eclectic piece of work that I think any music fan can appreciate, or take something from. But the real taker here is that they are amazing live, and I feel privileged to have seen them. I have no idea as to what capacity this band has planned for the future, but I can only hope for more albums, and more live shows. For this super group it is not that sound of egos scraping together, it’s the sound of a 100% original group effort resulting in beautiful music for all the right reasons.