Zeus from Toronto play Northampton UK, here's what happened...
Well firstly when BBC Northampton's Weekender mentioned 'there's a band playing from Toronto in town tomorrow night' on their Friday evening show, my attention was grabbed in an instant.
'Zeus' I'd never heard of before. Saturday AM was spent listening to their music online and a rather good concert by them recorded by CBC, which was handy. So I took a 'crash course' in their music. I was liking what I was hearing.
Tracks like 'Kindergarten','Garden By The River' and 'How Does It Feel' caught my attention, sort of 'Canadian' with a dash of Sloan/ELO/April Wine and The Beatles, these guys had absorbed a lot of 'classic rock' influences, but where making their own unique sound, tinged with vintage sensibilities.
“Are the band here yet?” I asked the doorman at ‘The Legendary Labour Club’ Charles Street, Northampton, as I stumped up my £2 admission charge. “Yeah they are here, but the talk funny” he interjected. I laughed “their from Toronto, Ontario. That’s why they sound odd to Brits”.
A local band did their support slot ‘The Heath Robinson Five’ I think there was 6 in the band, pretty good band I must say.
I headed out into the garden at the back to get some air, “no one sitting here?” I asked. “No dude” came back the reply in full blown Canadian. “are you with the band?” I asked (do I sound like an ageing groupie?) “I’m in the band” came back the reply. Instant ice broken.
Well we talked for about 20 minutes about various who’s who in the Toronto music scene/venues and daft stuff like do you know ‘blah supermarket near blah, I was always shopping there!?’. Names like Sloan, Metric, Fiest, Broken Social Scene, The Horsehoe Tavern, The Dakota Tavern, Massey Hall, CIUT and heaps of Toronto/Canadian banter ensued.Of course one topic HAD to come up... ‘Snow’ and I heard some funny ‘crossing the Rockies’ anecdotes, of life on the ‘mountain’ road, plus the sheer logistics and distances touring Canada are staggering, how big it is geographically. I mean they had to drive a massive 30 minutes from their previous nights gig in Coventry.
Well the conversation was animated and funny, and made me very homesick for Toronto and Jana (aka MissRedd) her family and freinds. (I digress, back to music).
So ‘Zeus’ hit the stage, and straight away it was a compelling performance, high energy, take no prisoners rock, dripping in harmonies, hooks and great playing, they where great.They started with the great ‘Kindergarten’, then tracks that followed ‘Love Pain’, ‘How Does It Feel’,’Greater’, ‘Garden By The River’ (incredible btw),a cover of the Genesis ‘You Say’ other tracks that stuck out ‘Aeroplane’, Hot Under The Collar’ ‘Wasting Time’ and ‘Daemons’.
Zeus swopped instruments a lot so it was a rotation who was on bass/guitar/keyboards, it kept things very fluid and with three songwriters in the band it was cool. "Do you have a George in the band?" I asked after the gig, ‘no we all get a fair crack of the whip musically’ I was informed.
The gig was sweaty/hot and quite exhausting.
Zeus had gone from a standing start, no one knowing who the heck they where, to winning over the assembled crowd, who where a little in shock, these guys didn’t stand on ceremony “are you guys too cool to get on down?” was the question from the stage.The ‘uptight’ Northamptonians loosened up and got into the music, with vigour and enthusiasm, by now Zeus had the crowd clapping along and really enjoying themselves.
It was over too quick, including the encore, my fave new band ‘Zeus'.After the show introduced to other band members and wisecracks from them “Kevin I see you’re dressed for a Canadian winter” etc ensued, good humoured, cool guys, it was a privledge to discover them, and get a little piece of Toronto into Northampton for a couple of hours.Lots of fun, superb band, now go search 'Zeus' on CBC and hear what I’m raving about, over and out! 
BTW...
Yep thee 'When zallaz met Zeus' shots!! :D
!
