Photographs by Olivia Leung.
On the final night of his tour supporting his debut album Ratchet, both Shamir and his adoring clinic put on a clinic for an awesome show at the Mod Club Friday night.
I caught New York’s Shamir at the dawn of summer at Toronto Island’s Bestival. His stage banter was a bit awkward but he filled a field with such rhythms I knew it would be irresistible in a club.
Despite the early Friday night slot, Shamir drew a pretty diverse audience ready to collectively get their weekend started with a healthy dose of booty-shaking. And how could anyone resist? Not only is Ratchet a dancefloor killer, it’s one of the highlights of the year. Announcing that the night was the final night of the tour and wanting to make it something special, everyone mobilized and combusted into a ball of euphoric ecstasy, making it just that.
Opening the night with Ratchet’s “Vegas”, Shamir and crowd would hit the crowd running and dial up the energy levels up to ten for an hour, airing almost all of Ratchet, a couple of early tracks and a cover of Joyce Manor’s “Christmas Card”.
The time on the road has clearly paid off with the Shamir experience a well-oiled machine now. The awkward banter was replaced with a relaxed vibe more comfortable in conducting a party. Live drums underlined beats and hypnotized the crowd into losing their collective shit, especially on high energy bangers “Hot Mess”, “On the Regular” and “Call It Off” all highlights, among a set that didn’t offer up a bum note. The Mod Club held the booming bass nicely, the sound was mixed perfectly and the retina-searing lightshow were all perfect accents to the music.
A special note has to be made of the crowd. I got nervous when Shamir requesting special in light of Toronto’s habits to warm their hands in their armpits or forget they are at a crowd announcing all the trivial minutiae of their daily lives. Not only did most of the floor pogo in a perfect wave and loudly roar their approval, they paid attention and I didn’t see a phone go up until the end of the night for the only slow song where everyone got a chance to breathe and let their hair down, literally.
So a special night was to be had after all. Shamir should be happy that a crowd as varied as this all had a blast and the crowd’s Friday night got off to a start that would be hard to match.
