It may be just the right-sized room for Japandroids’ brand of soaring arena rock sentimentality, built on King’s guitar, drummer David Prowse’s coursing rhythms, and their combined talents as a two-man gang vocal section, yelling like hell to the heavens. Wow,” he announces to the cheering crowd, with equal parts triumph and disbelief. Lead singer Brian King gives the record its title early on in the set: “Wow. (They originally planned to release it last week, but rescheduled in recognition of the Juneteenth holiday). It was recorded in 2017 at the eponymous 2752-seat Toronto venue, which has hosted the likes of Bob Dylan, Van Halen, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gilespie. Their new live album, Massey Fucking Hall (ANTI-), is a time capsule of simpler days. In a post-COVID, pre-vaccine, gig-free world, though, there’s a new sense of novelty in the basic facts of performance–of two people in a room, playing together, in real time, for an audience. It was a sensible move for a maturing band with two solid, critically acclaimed LP’s under their belt, looking for their next direction. When Vancouver rock duo Japandroids went into the studio to record their last album–2017’s Near To The Wild Heart Of Life–they set out to shift gears from their typically minimal, live-inspired sound.
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