When Constantines announced last Spring that they’d be returning from their four year hiatus with a string of shows, starting with Arts & Crafts’ Field Trip festival, fans rejoiced, dubbing 2014 the #summerofCons. The band toured across the country playing clubs, festivals and even a date opening for Arcade Fire at the Molson Amphitheatre.
When the summer ended, the band went on to extend their tour into the fall, it left fans wondering, “Is this just another victory lap, or is this a full on reunion?” The band went through the Fall, and into the Spring and Summer of this year, without changing things up too much, and looked poised to finish their reunion tour and go back into retirement. Then Thursday night happened.
As the band came out, the crowd prepared to pump their fists in the air to the familiar pounding kick drum intro of Draw us Lines, which they had played to open pretty much every show since reuniting. Perhaps inspired by the recent success of the Blue Jays, the Cons decided to throw their loyal fans a curveball and kicked the night off with Arizona (the 1st song of their self titled debut) followed by Young Offenders. Something about this night was a little different.
Then, came the moment that everyone in that room had been waiting for…a NEW SONG! After a year and a half, the Cons officially announced they were back!
From their new song, they settled back into the regular routine, with the crowd into is just as much as always. As Bry Webb noted, “If there’s one thing you can rely on a Cons fan to do, it’s yelling out shit.” This love of the band came in particularly handy when Bry messed up the beginning of “On to You” and handed the microphone to the crowd for one of the most entertaining sing-alongs that I’ve seen.
After getting his microphone back, the band played another new song, letting the crowd know that the 2 nights at Lee’s Palace were going to be their last for a while, because they were going to be working on new material. FINALLY!!!!
The band ended the set with what has become expected from this tour, their usual Hyacinth Blues into Lou Reed’s Temporary Thing medley, and the fans all walked out knowing that this reunion tour was done, and their favourite band was back.
