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Concert reviews Music

Operators get intimate at Adelaide Hall

OPERATORS at Adelaide Hall, Friday, August 28. Rating: NNN

A small crowd turned up for the Grolsch-sponsored concert by Operators, despite the free cover charge and the band’s original buzziness, which caused them to sell out three nights at the Silver Dollar last year. The Dan Boeckner-led band still turned out an enthusiastic set built on new songs and ones from last August’s EP 1 album, their danceable synth rock set to cool white lights at the newly renovated Adelaide Hall.

Boeckner and his female doppelganger Devojka on keyboards had a punked-out energy, thrashing their spiky hair and thin bodies to the music. Boeckner switched between distorted guitar and machine twiddling alongside drummer Sam Brown (who also played in Boeckner’s short-lived Divine Fits project with Spoon’s Britt Daniel) and former Hot Hot Heat bassist Dustin Hawthorne.

Was the lack of bodies a sign of a dying or perhaps oversaturated live music scene? A result of the gig having been announced a mere week earlier? A consequence of summer having sucked Torontonians into cottage country? You couldn’t blame the latter considering that, just outside, the sidewalk teemed with Entertainment District showboats thirsty for a different kind of dance floor experience.

carlag@nowtoronto.com | @carlagillis

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