The Spoons at Revival March 30, 2012 Toronto Setlist

Thanks to Penn for the picture.

Canadian new wave outfit the Spoons were back to celebrate the release of Nova Heart, their second and quite big single, thirty years later. Hard to believe its almost been 28 years since I saw them rotating two nights in a row on the Ontario Place forum stage playing for thousands of people in my teens. The band is as exciting to see as they were thirty years ago running through a mix of their hits and new tracks from their pretty good new album called Static In Transmission.

The concert was at revival where they charge $7.50 for a bottle of Keiths. Ouch. The show was sponsored by some radio station called Boom who play the hits of the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties. Interesting focus which I can only assume is an outlet to play major label back catalog at nauseum.

I got to the venue early enough to catch the two opening bands. The first band was called Calling August who by their Facebook website is unsigned duo although there seemed to be more people on stage. They did have a catchy single called In Jamaica which really stuck in the brain.

The second band Puncturevine were an electronic industrial band who describe themselves on Twitter as: An emotionally vibrant and highly charged hybrid of the organic and electronic, Puncturevine breathes long-lost life into modern music. Simply put this band was weird and sounded like some very bad eurodance music from the early nineties including industrial rapping. Their last song was a cover of the Donna Summer classic I Feel Love which one of the singers prefaced as potentially being from the seventies. HA!

The Spoons came on at about 11:00 PM and played a set that spanned their whole eighties career:

Arias And Symphonies (Arias And Symphonies - 1982)
Smiling In Winter (Arias And Symphonies - 1982)
Starmaps (Static In Transmission - 2011)
Imperfekt (Static In Transmission - 2011)
Old Emotions (Talk Back - 1983)
The Rhythm (Talk Back - 1983)
Waterline (Vertigo Tango - 1988)
Escape With You (Static In Transmission - 2011)
You Light Up (Static In Transmission - 2011)
Romantic Traffic (Tell No Lies/Romantic Traffic EP - 1984)
Rodeo (Bridges Over Borders - 1986)
End Of Story (Static In Transmission - 2011)
Tell No Lies (Tell No Lies/Romantic Traffic EP - 1984)
Nova Heart (Arias And Symphonies - 1982)

Encore

Bridges Over Borders (Bridges Over Borders - 1986)
When Time Turns Around (Vertigo Tango - 1988)
Nova Heart (New Version) (Nova Heart 30th Anniversary EP - 2012)

Simply put the Spoons didn't disappoint.

Here is what the Twitter world said about the show:

@lanietreen: Very excited to see @thespoons tonight at Revival in Toronto. Congrats on the 30th anniversary of #NovaHeart , Gord & Sandy!

@Jeff_Inkster: At Rivival Niteclub w/ Maie Potts of BOOM 97.3 celebrating The Spoons 30th Anniversary of Nova Heart!

@IKvsDK: Tell no lies #revival #toronto

@irkatherine: Gord Deppe gave me his Les Paul! @thespoons happy 30th Nova Heart

@MelanieFisbane: Check out @thespoons new version of Nova Heart called "Singularity Mix." One of the best songs of the night. @WomenFishing

‏@irkatherine: @aRoseofSharon @thespoons That was an example of the depth of Gord's skill - and the solo version of Nova Heart was beautiful!

@aRoseofSharon: @thespoons Singularity Nova Heart was great too. It's my new favourite song now (all over again)!And I love the new intro to Tell No Lies:)

@thespoons: @MelanieFishbane Glad you liked the new Nova Heart. There's still life in that old song after all these years.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtqIlvg3wsw