I have a confession to make. Whenever I take someone to a show based on my recommendation, and said person has never heard of the artist/band playing or listened to them before, I feel personally responsible if that person has a shitty time.  Maybe its because I feel like I’m wasting that person’s money, maybe its because I feel like I am failing to sell the band, but I feel guilty nonetheless. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case last Friday when I went with a friend to Lee’s Palace, to check out a bill with three bands that she had never heard of. I had interviewed bands at Lee’s before, but I had never attended an actual show at the venue, but was plenty impressed with the layout of the place. No matter where you are in the venue, you are guaranteed a decent vantage point of the stage.  We started sitting along the outside, before moving to stand in the lowered pit in the centre of the room.  The multiple gin and tonics also didn’t hurt.

Unfortunately for the packed crowd at Lee’s, the night got off to a weak start with the opening band, Charlottetown’sThe Danks. Despite sharing members with Two Hours Traffic, it was the voice of the band’s lead singer, Bryan Moore, that I felt ruined what might have been decent, albeit uninspired, garage rock tunes.  It was obvious that Moore was trying to pull off  his best Julian Casablancas impression, but his raggedy vocals fell rather flat.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/meetthedanks

Luckily any bad tastes left in the crowds’ mouths were quickly forgotten, as soon as Toronto’s hometown darlingsSpiral Beach took to the stage, accompanied by their trademark orange pylons. The quartet are just entering their twenties, but the energy they display onstage, reminds me of a group of junior high kids that got into their parents’ liquor cabinets. The band recently released their third album, The Only Real Thing, which adds spaced- out synths and surf rock guitars to their frenetic, messy garage-punk.  It didn’t take long before the band’s female vocalist and keyboardist Maddy Wilde, who was wearing an upside down, cut-up tee with “Florida” written on it and a frilly black skirt, had the crowd willingly eating out of her hand. I think my friend who accompanied me to this show described Wilde’s look the best, calling her “Emily Haines, if she had got electrocuted.” And while its true the singer was highly entertaining to watch; and her hair is a few twigs short of a bird’s nest, she is certainly a vocal powerhouse, wailing like a banshee and hitting some impressively high notes. The rest of the band; vocalist and guitarist Airick Woodhead, bassist Dorian Wolf, and drummer Daniel Woodhead, were also on pointe in terms of  musicianship and enthusiasm. Spiral Beach played a solid set with plenty of songs from The Only Real Thing mixed in with older material, including the stellar “Zombie”, and left the audience more than pumped up for Two Hours Traffic.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/spiralbeach

This was the second-last show on their tour, and the Lee’s crowd was more than happy to give a heroes’ welcome to Two Hours Traffic. Hailing from the smallest province in Canada, the quartet are the musical equivalent of “The Little Engine That Could” – coming up from relative obscurity to headlining tours, appearing on the cover of national music magazines such as EXCLAIM!, and even receiving a 2008 Polaris Prize nomination for their sophomore album, Little Jabs. Two Hours Traffic are truly the type of band who prefer to let their music speak for itself. That music isn’t flashy either – just earnest, well-written power-pop songs free of pretentiousness with a characteristically laid-back Atlantic Canadian nature.

The public and critic consensus of the band’s latest album, Territory, is that Two Hours Traffic have discovered darker subject matter including alcoholism, religious beliefs, and conflicted relationships. But if you need proof that the band who once wrote a song cheekily-named “Backseat Sweetheart” has lost their sense of humour, look no further than a lyric like, “You say you don’t like the beach, that is fine, but there’s sand in your sheets.” While new songs like“Noisemaker” and “Territory” are TWT classics-in-waiting, cuts from Little Jabs like “Nighthawks” and the incredibly catchy “Stuck For The Summer”, got the biggest reactions from the crowd. After lead singer Liam Corcoran finished thanking everyone and their mothers, the band finished their set with the absolutely gorgeous“Jezebel”.  How do I describe just how good this song is? Let’s just say that if there was any justice in the world, this song would be played at weddings more often as the newly wed couples’ first dance.  One can only hope… After about five minutes of cheering, the band came back for a quick encore, but at that point it wasn’t even necessary.  It’s great to see a down-to-earth, hardworking band like Two Hours Traffic have this success, and I’m sure everyone in attendance that night at Lee’s went home hoping that there are nothing but even better days and more success to come for these guys.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/twohourstraffic