Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Kool Haus May 26, 2007

Shows at Toronto’s Kool Haus are attended with some reluctance these days, as the oft-troubled venue, intent on controlling soused patrons, has taken to measures like stopping bar service at midnight.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club guitarist Peter Hayes, not very concerned with the hall’s rules (or the city’s bylaws) strutted onto the stage smoking a cigarette, which he continued to defiantly inhale over the course of the first two songs. It wasn’t intended as a statement – this Los Angeles three-piece are simply bad-ass motherf*ckers and they’re one of the few bands that has the skills and the swagger to back it up.

It’s unlikely anyone could name a major-label band that’s been awarded the indie cult status that BRMC have become accustomed to. It’s even more unlikely that anyone could name such a band, which, four albums into its career, keeps making better and better music. BRMC’s latest, the political yet spiritual Baby 81, was the focus of this night’s rock spectacle, and this gang of Danny Zukos couldn’t have done a much better job of translating it to a live setting. The songs on the disc are perhaps already set-up as stadium anthems, but it takes some real talent for a threesome to pull off that much organized noise.

As one would expect, the show’s later stages were dominated by old hits like “Love Burns” and “Red Eyes and Tears,” but it was moments from 2005’s deviation, Howl, that really stole the show and proved that these rock and rollers still have a little country in their hearts.

(4.5/5)