As she walks the night, how many hearts will die tonight?

City And Colour played the Malkin Bowl last night.

Black Lungs was the opener. It's basically Wade MacNeil, guitarist and vocalist for Alexisonfire, playing solo with his Fender Tele. His stuff was alright. Wade also has a solo album coming out soon on Dine Alone Records.

Dallas Green played to a packed Vancouver audience. The atmosphere of the show was definitely different than when he played here back in March. Going into the concert, I was worried about the intimacy issue of the show as the Malkin Bowl is an outdoor grassy field that holds 1500 people. I wanted to make sure that the emotion of Dallas's songs would translate well across the open air venue. Having a person play solo on a big outdoor stage with minimal lighting can sometimes lessen the effect of the songs. Maybe it was because I was so focused on his performance that I didn't let any surrounding noises distract me from the show.

Dallas came onstage and opened with an untitled new song, which we'll tentatively call Cross My Heart. He was once again armed with just his Gibson ES-335 and that amazing voice. Being a general admission show, there was a crowd huddled up standing near the front of the stage, while the rest of the audience sat down behind on the grass to take in the show. People around us were quiet for the most part throughout the performance with the exceptional few.

The St. Catharines native was quite interactive with the audience as he tuned his guitar in-between songs. He plugged the new Alexisonfire album, then asked for a show of hands "Who's gonna buy it Tuesday.....Okay, who's already downloaded it".



Dallas then played a Kristofer Astrom cover of How Come Your Arms Are Not Around Me, before mentioning that he was only four songs into the set but had to pee really bad. He played one more song, Sam Malone, before once again stating his urgent need to go. With the audience support, he mentioned that he'll be stepping offstage for a quick pee break and outfit change.

Dallas came back on refreshed and went right into a riveting performance of Day Old Hate. That song gets to me everytime. He followed up with a Constantines cover of Soon Enough.

There were people in the front that kept yelling out things and Dallas would say "It's pretty quiet so you don't have to yell. We can just talk to each other". Another person also shouted out the usual "Take it off!" and Dallas responded with "If I did, it would just make me uncomfortable...so I'm not gonna".

During Casey's Song, Dallas tried to get the crowd singing along, then asked everyone to open up their cellphones and hold it up. It resulted in a pretty interesting light display.

He ended the main set with another new song called Sensible Heart. For the brief encore, Dallas came back onstage and closed with Save Your Scissors. He tried to get the crowd to sing the whole song by themselves. Unfortunately, that didn't work out as well with the mellow Vancouver crowd so he stepped in to finish it. I thought it would have been better had he ended the show with the new song instead.

Favourites from the 1hr 20min set included Hello I'm In Delaware, Day Old Hate, Like Knives, and Sensible Heart. Also, the vocals in Sam Malone are so much more intense live just like the last time I saw him.


Setlist:

untitled new song (Cross My Heart)
Comin' Home
Hello, I'm In Delaware
How Come Your Arms Are Not Around Me (Kristofer Astrom cover)
Sam Malone
Day Old Hate
Soon Enough (Constantines cover)
Sometimes
Casey's Song
Like Knives
Sensible Heart
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Save Your Scissors