The Temper Trap came to Toronto to play an intimate show at the Virgin Mobile Mod Club even though they are currently not touring a new album. In fact they haven’t released an album since 2012’s self-titled record, their second to date. The all-ages crowd was very excited for the band to hit the stage, as young girls tried to squirm their way towards to front and hardcore fans that came early holding their ground steadfastly. The band came out and played a very spacey rock-prog intro that does not appear on their albums. It was quite hard considered the band plays mostly sticky sweet synth rock. They then launched into their first song Rabbit Hole which played out just as you expect their sound to be. Lead singer Dougy Mandagi asked the crowd if anyone was at Osheaga over the weekend and saw them play there as well. A handful of audience members cheered for the just passed festival, which is becoming an annual pilgrimage for Toronto area folks looking for a US-style festival atmosphere. Someone in the crowd shouted that they are in for a double dip, which Mandagi laughed in agreement. This was the first of several crowd interactions where people shouted something between songs and Mandagi engaged them.
Mandagi announced they were still going to play some “oldies, but goodies” in their set which included a lot of tracks off of both of their releases. One of the biggest cheers of the night came when Trembling Hands was played, with some people singing loudly along. Even though the guys didn’t have a new album to promote, they were road testing several new songs. The band claimed to be busy in the studio working on a follow-up album. The first of the new tracks was Burn, which had a really grooving back beat to sway your hips to. When the chorus broke out, it turned into a high intensity freak out dance number. It could easily be their biggest hit since Sweet Disposition, when it officially comes out. The band got a very enthusiastic response from the crowd.
They got back to their “golden oldies” and played Down River with extra crunchy guitar riffs emanating from Mandagi’s Rickenbacker guitar. They played more new songs like Summer’s Almost Gone, which was their take on a super slowed down hip-hop like beat. The song had a bit of a more rock James Blake-like feel to it, which I wouldn’t be surprised if down the line it gets sampled.
It was hard not to enjoy yourself when the crowd and the band were so in sync throughout the night. “You guys fucking rock Toronto, you’re making my job easy!” Mandagi exclaimed. Dougy’s dance moves were quite impressive, during slower songs he would groove along slowly, grinding his hips. When the band played fast paced jams Dougy freaked out and jumped around everywhere unable to contain his energy.
Towards the end of the set the band played Drum Song which is an instrumental number that sounds a bit like the band Foals. Mandagi had a drum set up on stage and wailed away on it creating a very tribal bass and drum sound with the other members. Halfway through the song, the band ripped into a cover of The Clash’s, Rock the Casbah for a very unique take on it, as they maintained their tribal beat. After a few choruses of Rock the Casbah, they returned to Drum Song for a crazy final go at the beat.
At the start of the encore Mandagi recognized two younger fans, dead center in front of the stage, and told they crowd how they were the first people in line for the show. Mandagi knew that because they were in line before everyone arrived for sound check. He then proceeded to give them high fives and thank them for their dedication and fandom. The Temper Trap ended their encore with the song everyone was dying to hear, Sweet Disposition, one of the sexiest pop songs of the last few years. Mandagi held the microphone out to the audience to help sing the chorus and his own wailing falsetto was put on full display. The guys all looked genuinely blown away by the intense cheering their music created. It is times like this you release the true bond between artist and audience when they are so perfectly in line and feed off each other’s energy. Whether you like a band or not, it is impossible not to get the infectious energy when everything lines up like it did for this night.
