This article was originally published on November 23 in the University of Waterloo’s student newspaper, Imprint. The printed article was published with three photos, and the online article was published text-only.
 |
 |
 |
On the night of Tuesday, Nov. 13, Uptown Waterloo was given a double dosage of some of the most iconic rock music in Canadian history. Starlight Social Club was once again a temporary home for Sloan, a Juno-winning band from the heart of Nova Scotia. Although they made a stop in town last year to celebrate their 20th anniversary and promote their newest album The Double Cross, Tuesday’s show was all about nostalgia.
Acting as their own opening band, Sloan first took the stage to perform their 1994 album Twice Removed in its entirety. With a banter-free environment and astonishing replications of each song, Sloan gave the crowd an experience that was unforgettable — it was like listening to Twice Removed for the first time all over again, but the live show engaged all the senses. Luckily for the crowd, Sloan’s dedication to accurate song reconstruction was satisfying enough; their stage presence took a hit in favour of ensuring that every last detail from the record was clear for the audience to hear. With the band only taking a few chances to engage the crowd, the music had to do most of the work — and there’s no denying that it did exactly that. For over an hour, the band played their breakthrough record, starting off with “Penpals,” a song inspired by reading Nirvana’s fan mail, and carrying on through their back-to-back singles “People Of The Sky” and “Coax Me.”
An intimate rendition of their stripped-down “Deeper Than Beauty” was a surprising highlight to the first half of the night – a high point just before the relatively mellow closing songs. As the album wound down, the crowd dispersed and mingled until the second act, reassured that they would get more of these Canadian icons after the break.
A few minutes later, the crowd packed back together and demands for Sloan filled the air. As they walked on stage for the second time that night, it was almost hard to imagine that they had already played a full album’s worth of material. Energy levels were even higher than before, and underneath the screams of the crowd, Sloan welcomed everyone back to the second set. A mini-medley between “Everything You’ve Done Wrong” and “Who Taught You To Live Like That” quickly swept us up in the swinging rhythms and sing-along choruses. The music could be felt just as much as we could see and hear it; we could smell the fog machine and an air conditioner not quite able to keep up, the taste of water or a preferred drink kept our throats clear as we sang along to every line. Including megahits like “Money City Maniacs” and band favourites like “Beverly Terrace,” we were given 16 songs to sing and dance along to, plus an encore that featured another fan favourite, “Underwhelmed.”
Although stage presence wasn’t the band’s forte in the opening set, they more than made up for it during their return to the stage. The double-feature format allowed long-time Sloan fans to experience a new dimension of a classic album, but the show stayed accessible to casual listeners with an abundance of popular songs. Starlight provided the intimate atmosphere that the band needed, and the crowd loved the chance to get up close and personal with these Canadian rockers. It seems to be an annual occurrence that Sloan makes its way through Waterloo — let’s hope it stays that way for at least a few more years.
Mitchell Buchanan 