Photographs by Fernando Paiz.
It’s that special time of year when bands we know and love are wrapping up long and arduous touring schedules, playing shows close to home for friends and family who’ve missed them before the grind starts anew.
Tokyo Police Club certainly fell into this camp with their two final concerts of 2014 at Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall, although the York Regionite in me is quick to remind anyone in earshot that the band is originally from Newmarket. It sure felt like entire town came down the 404 to “cheer on” their world-conquering heroes, as well as be hospitable to West Coast van-mates Said the Whale and garage rocker girls The Pack A.D. (Dilly Dally, the “epic grunge pop world” group fronted by TPC member Dave Monks’ sister Katie have been opening on select dates, including Thursday December 11th.)
Speaking of epic, not to overuse that word like it’s 2012 all over again, but that’s really the only way to describe how Tokyo Police Club have been kicking off their shows with “Argentina”. All THREE parts of the song that begins latest album Forcefield, mind you, which altogether total more than 8 minutes of alt-rock awesomeness. If I can be honest for a minute, I’m shocked and a little disappointed at the lack of year-end love TPC’s third studio full-length ISN’T getting from the Canadian music writing community. Remember how everyone was excited when they teased the track titles for it through an awesomely fun word search? I still think it’s a solid all-around effort that shows growth and maturity in the almost 4 years since Champ; the partisan crowd seemed to agree, reacting positively to pretty much everything Messrs Monks, Graham Wright, Josh Hook and Greg Alsop threw at them from in front of their brilliantly blue band name backdrop. Forcefield material, BTW, made up nearly a third of the set, but no one was heard complaining.
As with any band that has achieved the level of experience and success Tokyo Police Club has, the biggest applauses were reserved for the encore…or should that be the most reverence? At Monks’ request, he did the emotional “Tessellate” solo, acoustically, and without the use of amplifiers. Getting 1,500 approval-shouting diehards was quite the impressive feat, which made for an even more memorable homecoming. If they hadn’t already earned some well-deserved time off for the holidays, this sealed it, and may have even made them candidates to be part of bigtime spring festivals like Coachella. To go out on a reference from The Simpsons having to do with Japan, I hope Annual Gift Man is good to all of Tokyo Police Club when he visits them this Christmas from the moon!
