SBTRKT at The Danforth Music Hall

Photographs by Sarah Rix.

How fitting is it on Halloween to have a concert where not only the attendees dress up, but also the artist does as well! Well in the case of SBTRKT he didn’t have to do much, as he already plays all his shows in a mask. SBTRKT, whose real name is Aaron Jerome, wears native society ceremonial masks that cover the top half of his face. To make things a little more interesting he painted the bottom half of his face to look like a skeleton. In the early part of his set he played Never Never, a song that features fellow Brit Sampha. While Sampa wasn’t present to sing the songs they collaborated on, his presence was felt throughout the whole show. Sampha in the past toured with SBTRKT and he was able to provide his soaring voice live, those of us in Toronto had to settle for the recorded version. Flanked on either side of Jerome were a drummer and a keyboardist to help create a full sound with plenty of bass drumming. 

Even though SBTRKT just released his second album, Wonder Where We Land, the set was short of new material. He played the slightly haunting yet very weird NEW DORP. NEW YORK that features vocals from Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig. The drumming style was reminiscent of Robert Delong at his live shows. Jerome rarely spoke to the crowd, but he gave a “Yay Toronto” in his soft-spoken accented voice. 

For some reason his gear was giving him technical difficulties and the breaks between songs seemed to be longer and longer. Finally he had to stop his set and claimed “You’re going to hate us for this”, and took over thirty minutes to fix whatever needed to be rectified. Unfortunately the crowd’s energy was gone and even though I was right up at the front I wouldn’t be surprised if some people left. It was a shame since when the music was playing the crowd loved it. I ended up leaving during his hit single Wildfire that features Little Dragon. I believe it was intended to be his last song before the encore but I don’t know if he played more or not. It was a late and frustrating evening that should have gone a lot smoother. It was interesting seeing people dressed up, including several people with handmade SBTRKT masks. He plays a second show and we hope that this set goes a lot better and the crowd gets something special because of it.