The Beatles were a studio band. Kiss was an arena band. Others, like the Mountain Goats, Smog and Tegan and Sara are open-mic bands. Broken Social Scene may be North America’s foremost outdoor band. Fitting then, that Canada’s reigning indie-rock supergroup is once again showcasing its ethereal brand of indie-pop al fresco. A few years back at Pier 54, they ably filled the surrounding airspace with bell-toned guitars and an expansive Echoplexed sound that recalled The Unforgettable Fire-era U2, and any number of early ’90s 4AD bands. The crowd was predictably frail, pale and bespectacled—it was like some evil urban planner had temporarily relocated the Bedford Ave L-stop to Westside Manhattan. Expect the same army of ironically detached mechanical hip-bots clanking around the Park Slope Bandshell lawn on July 6.
BSS continues to be a slapdash amalgam of Toronto-based musicians, all reverently gathered around their spiritual and musical guru, Kevin Drew. Many of these scenesters are veterans of more obscure, artier projects. They got tired of being broke and experimental, so they eventually decided to try and write some happy pop songs. The indie-geek fashionistas at Pitchforkmedia popped serious boners over BSS’s promising 2002 debut, You Forgot It In People. This led to the band’s instant popularity among East Coast boarding schools and perpetuated even more American indifference toward Sloan. Years later, the never-prescient New York Times finally “discovered” BSS, running a J-school puff-piece that stressed the band’s anti-individualist spirit and love of ’60s-style participatory democracy.
BSS’s post-2002 output hasn’t lived up to the band’s early potential. But unlike recent recipients of indie-wonk hyperbole, Clap Your Hands Shut Up and Arctic Cockneys, BSS rarely provokes “What is this shit?” moments from those of us born into Watergate-era skepticism. If the band has an obvious weakness, it’s that they seem more attentive to overall sound sculpting than actual songwriting. And it’s sometimes hard to stomach the hippie-communal Partridge Family vibe that happens when the band’s membership grows to philharmonic proportions live (expect anywhere from eight to 25 people milling around on stage at any given moment). With this dubiously liberal, hyper-inclusive approach, the song-by-song results can either be transcendently symphonic, or at worst, muddled and aimless. Whatever the case, if you’ve only heard this band filtered through your elitist iPod and not in open air, you’re missing out.
July 6. Prospect Bark Bandshell, Prospect Park West & 9th St., Brooklyn, 718-855-7882; 6, $30.
