Like a small child staring in awe at a magic trick , I watched in amazement at the Arkells show on February 11th at the Metropolis. This show had SO much happening that it will be forever lodged in my memories.
Opening the show with ‘A Little Rain’, they got the crowd warmed up for a Saturday night in Montreal followed by ‘Michigan Left’ , ‘Come to Light’ and ‘Ballad of Hugo Chavez’. The insane amount of energy lead singer Max Kerman has onstage is contagious. He gets rockers from all ages out of their seats dancing.. yes even 70 year olds in the audience!
“What time is it?” Max asks the audience… and, as everyone screams out “11:11” the band starts up with of course.. you guessed it.. “11:11”. It’s followed up by an acoustic set of ‘And Then Some’, which gives everyone a little bit or rest on their feet.. but it’s not for a long time because next on the set list is ‘Oh, The Boss Is Coming!’ where Max pulls a random kid from the audience and let’s him play guitar along with them for the whole song! They certainly made this kid’s night.
Next he brings up opening band Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls to play some Rock n’ Roll karaoke with hits from none other that The Boss aka Bruce Springsteen. They kill it on stage and just as we think this show couldn’t get any better, he invited up “dance instructors” Ben and Brigette onto the stage for ‘Dirty Blonde’. As they get onto stage Brigette looks a little confused as her boyfriend gets down on one knee and declares his love for her with his marriage proposal!!!
The crowd is now losing their minds! She accepts his proposal and spend the rest of the song dancing with each other on stage. (#couplegoals)
The night ends with an encore of ‘Whistleblower’ which was performed half acoustic, ‘Cynical Bastards’ and ‘Leather Jacket’ . As they exit the stage for a second time I could only hope that they would come back for a second encore because I don’t think anyone in that room wanted the show to end. Through all of the traffic and impossible parking frustration downtown, it was TOTALLY worth it to see The Arkells that night.
Review – Brittany Salmaso
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