What to know
- Arkells returned to Lee’s Palace this week for the first time since 2009.
- The show was part of the band’s Toronto “City Takeover” residency.
- Frontman Max Kerman reflected on discovering concerts through NOW Magazine during the band’s early years.
- The group performed songs from its new album Between Us before diving into fan favourites.
- Arkells headlined RBC Amphitheatre on Friday night.
Rock band Arkells, which have won group of the year at the Juno Awards a record six times, relived their career trajectory in just three consecutive days this week in Toronto, playing to 600 people at Lee’s Palace on Wednesday, then to 2500 people at History on Thursday and, finally, the place they’ve headlined for quite a few years now, RBC Amphitheatre to 16,000 people, on Friday (June 19).
Calling the residencies “City Takeovers” — which they’ve also done in Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary — the shows are divided into two main sets, the first, a front-to-back performance of their new studio album, Between Us, which frontman Max Kerman has said has a theme of connection, and the second set of past singles and album cuts since forming in Hamilton, Ont. at McMaster University 20 years ago.
And, Arkells certainly connect at Lee’s Palace, which was packed and sweltering, with barely space for one more body. Kerman grew up in downtown Toronto, a seven-minute walk from Lee’s Palace, he said, and Arkells have not played there since 2009. That was a year after they released their gold-selling debut album, Jackson Square, on Dine Alone Records. They signed with Universal for the next one — and they were off.
Looking like they were your local college band playing a fraternity, Kerman, who often wears loud, patterned jackets onstage, was dressed simply in an Arkells Toronto t-shirt and blue jeans, his bandmates — guitarist Mike DeAngelis, bassist Nick Dika, drummer Tim Oxford and keyboardist Anthony Carone — similarly casual in white tees.
With Between Us, their 11th studio album, out since mid-April, the audience was ready to join in. They knew the words and the gestures.
On the catchy “Ride,” — the song featuring GROUPLOVE — Kerman held out the microphone to them to sing and scream on command. For the Talking Head-sy “Money,” the one recorded with Portugal. He had a stack of fake bills and kept fanning himself, then passed them to audience members to distribute. For “Desire’s Got Some Questions,” when Kerman raised his arms with outstretched fingers, the audience did the same. When he sang “Two Hearts,” and positioned his arms into a heart shaped and dissolved them, as the lyric goes “two hearts exploding,” the audience did too.
“Lee’s Palace, night one, Toronto City Takeover,” the singer said, repeating that “It’s a joy to be back.
“This is the way the evening is gonna work,” he continued. “We came here to play our brand-new record, Between Us, top to bottom. We’re gonna be not first. We’re gonna take a small little break, then we’re gonna come back on stage, and we’re gonna dig deep into the catalogue. We assume, If you’ve got tickets to Lee’s Palace, you’re a die hard.”
“Have you been to an Arkells show before? We’ve been dancing with you for almost 20 years. We got to keep that dance alive,” he said before launching into “Imagine Barcelona,” a groovy story from the new album, in which he actually rhymes Barcelona with diet cola. “We wanna know how you move with us. Toronto.” And they did.
He told the crowd Arkells started touring a few months back, rattling off Germany, Amsterdam, London, dates in the USA, including New York City, then in western Canada, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton.
“But here’s the thing, we’ve had this date circled on the calendar, and the reality is you’ve had enough time to prepare. From the stage, the expectations of you are sky high, he said, getting the crowd to sing the words “Imagine Barcelona” over and over, then “Diet Cola.”
During “What Good?” he said, “You’ve been arrested for the crime of leaving your house, abandoning your scrolling. You have been arrested for coming to a rock and roll club in downtown Toronto, and experience rock music at its finest,” Kerman said. “How do you plead?” “Guilty” everyone yelled back.
He later said, “We haven’t played this venue since 2009, but this room means so much to us. When we were coming with as a band, we saw so many of our favourite Canadian acts play here. We saw Matt Mayes + El Torpedo. We saw the Weakerthans. We saw the Constantines. We saw Joel Plaskett.
“I remember telling our agent at the time, Jack Ross, who’s here right now — he’s been with us all this time — ‘If we can ever sell out Lee’s Palace, we’d be millionaires.’ And the amazing thing about that time of our life was that the only thing that you really knew was what was in NOW magazine or eye magazine,” he laughs, “and what was happening at your local club and the smallness of that world, I think is a really precious thing, especially right now. So, the opportunity to come back here and to play Lee’s Palace, it’s such an institution.
“For us, with the new album out, we were just thinking about, how can we just make a connection with these songs and our audience? And these days, it’s hard. There’s a thousand options when you open your phone. How do you get the time to listen to a record from top to bottom? And we thought the only way we could do that is what we know, and that is coming to a small club like this and just playing the album.
“Because for us, being able to have the connection with those songs from those artists that just mentioned, it just came from a little place like this. So, thank you, in this hectic, chaotic, busy world, thank you for giving us 2 hours of your life until we can have a moment together.”
