While all of Toronto’s hipster elite were fawning over Zooey Deschanel at the She & Him concert Thursday night, Brazilian electro pop group CSS were playing before a small crowd at The Mod Club. That was lucky for me because I got to stand in front of the stage to watch one of the most enigmatic front women (Lovefoxxx!!!!) in music today. Last night’s show was one of the funnest gigs I have ever been to and I was left wondering why it took me seven years to see this band.
It is always good to begin a concert on a winning note and CSS did that with “Art Bitch", the sexually overt electro punk song from their self titled debut album. With lyrics like “My art is called egocentric soft porno,” and “Lick, Lick, Lick my art tit" how can you go wrong. Those words perfectly describe the music of the band and their theatrics for the show.
Lovefoxxx came out on stage dressed conservatively in a pair of parachute pants but by the time the band launched into “City Grrl" she ripped them off to reveal a pair of leopard print short shorts. She teased the audience for the rest of the show by hiking the shorts up at times and then covering them up with a black laced chemise at other times.
There was bit of introspection in the middle of the set when Lovefoxxx reminisced about the other time they played The Mod Club back in 2006 and she remembered how proud she was that the members of Death From Above 1979 came to that gig. That led the band laying into a blistering version of “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above." that would have made Sebastien Grainger proud.
Lovefoxxx was a bundle of dancing joy throughout the set and wasn't afraid to come up to the lisp of the stage. There were times when she was standing right over top of me. She even stopped to flirt with an audience member who yelled out that he was lonely for her. She dedicated the song "I Love You" to him.... Lucky guy.
Could not find a set list for the show. Lovefoxxx handed out the paper set lists to the audience at the end of the gig but I was unable to grab one. However, I do remember several favourites were played by the band including "Move", "Alcohol," "Hangover" and the iPod commercial hit "Music Is My Hot Hot Sex." The encore contained "Alala" and the track with my favourite song title of the year "Frankie Goes To North Hollywood."
CSS ended with a fun song that Lovefoxxx dedicated to the bartender. “I’ve Seen You Drunk Gurl" is a hilarious hip hop duet between Lovefoxxx and bandmate Ana Rezende that brought the show to a awesomely amusing dumb (in a good way) ending.
