Sam Roberts Band on a Tuesday night? In a soft seat theatre? You’d never know it! Walking out on stage to massive applause, the band’s faces lit up, and they started their first song, Afterlife, from the new album, The Adventures of Ben Blank. Speaking to the audience after song #1, a grinning Roberts stated, “I know its a Tuesday night, and you have nice comfortable seats, but if the spirit moves you, and you need to move, we’re not going to say no,” chuckling, “you gotta do what you’re led to do.” To which 3/4 of the audience stood up cheering as the band jumped into the next songs, Take Me Away, followed by Them Kids (don’t know how to dance to rock and roll.) An appreciative Sam Roberts made a point to tell us how great it was to see us on our feet, quipping that Kelowna knew how to party any night of the week.
Having spent Saturday night past with the band at the Commodore Vancouver (on the fringes with a group of friends), it was fantastic to be up front and personal for this show, actually able to see Eric Fares on keyboards and Josh Trager on drums. Despite being the only person standing up in my small section, those on either side of me were seduced by the music, the light show and the sheer energy and magnetism of Sam and the band, quickly joining the rest of us to raise hands and sing, Where Have all the Good People Gone.
Let It In back-to-back with I Feel You gave us a chance to groove in our own headspace and/or watch Dave Nugent and Sam Roberts’ duelling guitar solos (awesome!) , and Picture of Love with Sam on acoustic was precious and special. Digging into the vintage archives, Bridge to Nowhere and Detroit 67 ramped the energy back up, and the amazing (favourite) Uprising Down Under made the setlist too!
The band’s last album, All of Us was released on the cusp of the Covid craziness and sort of fell through the cracks (its an EPIC album), so it was great to have some of those songs performed live for the first time along with newest Adventures of Ben Blank album songs. Brother Down closed out the set, with Roberts dancing like nobody was watching (I think he does it more for himself than us!), and again at the end, Roberts shaking a few outstretched hands as he exited the stage with the rest of the band.
Short respite, lots of crowd noises with boots on concrete and hands on the edge of the stage, and the band came back out for the encore, adding another four songs to the evening. Roberts addressed the audience after Love at the End of the World, speaking of us all needing love in our lives. Told us to take good care of each other, look out for each other, and introduced us to Everybody Needs Love, then closed out the show with a golden oldie, Don’t Walk Away Eileen, complete with audience singing (yelling) the chorus. At the end, the band took their bows, waved with the white lights on to see the audience better, and left the stage virtually beaming. I’m sure our faces were reflected in theirs just as beaming!
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