Back in May of this year I hadn’t heard of St. Paul and the Broken Bones. With less than a month before Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee, I was trying to devour as much music from as many of the bands playing as possible. The first second of the first song I knew I had to see this band. Early on Day 2, I waded into in the side tent and was blown away by the sheer force of this rock and soul band. St. Paul and the Broken Bones ended up being one of the best sets all weekend. This was a weekend that also included Elton John, Kanye West, Jack White, Frank Ocean, Disclosure and many others. Their November 4th show in Toronto was circled on my calendar with anticipation for one of the great up and coming bands.
The sold out show at The Horseshoe Tavern recommended concertgoers that we should arrive early to fit in the small venue. I arrived shortly after the doors opened thinking I might have been too late. There were a large number of people in the venue, but they were all sitting at tables or standing around the bar. There was maybe only a dozen people mingling in the facility of the stage. The crowd skewed older, more like “Dad’s Night Out” then soul revival throw down participants. That didn’t matter as by the time opening act Jessica Hernandez and The Deltas finished up, the place was packed and amped up. The full backing band came out on the stage and started playing sans lead singer. Much like a traditional soul show, the singer only comes out when the crowd is ready and begging for them and something with the band leader and guitarist Browan Lollar egging us on to do. Lead singer Paul Janeway came out like gangbusters and gave us everything in his body for almost two hours. “In case you don’t know who the hell we are, we are St. Paul and the Broken Bones and we’re from Alabama” Janeway exclaimed to cheers. Janeway would lean over the people in the front to get right up into the faces of people a bit further back. He traversed all sections of the stage, making sure every person now had a connection to the band.
I’m Torn Up, the opener to the bands debut album, was performed like Janeway was singing to a specific woman in the crowd. The growing intensity of the playing was like a dragon of love rising up. Confidence in a front man has always been deemed sexy, something all musicians strive for and Janeway has it in spades and mixed with his attitude make him part Robert Plant part Cassanova. We learned that this was the first time the band has ever played in Toronto, a point of pride that they clearly wanted to leave a good impression on us.
Since the band only has one album worth of material they needed to add some songs to the set list to keep things interesting. They started out with Sam Cooke’s Shake an absolutely classic tune that they did wonderful justice too. They followed it up later in the set with an odd choice, Radiohead’s Fake Plastic Trees. Janeway said they were going to play it their way. They turned it into a seductive ballad and Thom Yorke’s words never sounded sexier. In the middle of their rendition the chorus of Don’t Let Me Down by The Beatles was mixed in.
The show felt more like a baptist church service than concert and Pastor St. Paul led us in the sermon. Janeway talked about how he got his start singing in churches. He would say “amen” and he wanted us all to shout it back at him. The whole band oozes with talent, from the gospel infused organ to Slowhand style guitar playing to a horn section that both was at the forefront of the songs yet also didn’t overpower everyone else on stage.
In a nice touch of Southern charm Janeway extolled that they would only play one final song unless the audience was sweet to them, then maybe we will get an encore. They threw in a Bowie cover with scorching guitar solo but the true apex of the night was reversed for an even more revered soul song than Shake. Janeway told a story about how they have been playing this song for so long that they wanted to take it out of the set list but had to play it in honour of playing in Toronto. They blasted in Try A Little Tenderness by the incomparable Otis Redding and had the crowd eating out of their hands. The song started out slowly then with the incredible power to Janeway’s voice almost screaming the chorus. It truly seemed like he would blow out his vocal chords playing this set. The song seemed to be winding down several times before Janeway would jump back to his mic stand and go back into it. He even went down on one knee before flopping on his stomach to play dead. Just like James Brown did the music brought him back to life and he breathed fire into the crowd. Jay-Z and Kanye wish they could have rapped over this beat. Next time St. Paul and the Broken Bones come to Toronto you best believe they will be playing in a much larger venue and it will still sell out early.
