Over the past few years Lady Sovereign has released a string of fantastic singles with some of the tastiest beats and production out there, so when the opportunity to see her play a relatively small club in Toronto comes up I'm not one to turn it down. Last Wednesday it was at the Social, something of a hipster haunt that revels in its location right beside run down Parkdale with its Midnight Cowboy feel and the mentally wounded perched in the ghetto cafes.

The Social laps this environ up and drips with the irony of how it's one establishment among others spearheading gentrification of the area. One of walls alongside the dance floor reads in gothic font "an allegory for the death of Parkdale as we knew it" while the other boldly states "welfare." The path outside is full of real fashion histrionics taking photos of each other, mostly in a sort of nu-rave attempt that falls over itself and ends up a mid eighties Don Johnson dipped in day glo paint with some sideline fashion advice from Zack Moris. No matter how spot on the opening DJ's are none of these are going to admit enjoyment until Lady Sovereign orders them into it later in the night.

When she does come on, she stalks the stage in over sized sun-glasses and a t-shirt with "Ding dong special delivery" in large slogan font at the front, first she forces her way through "Cha-ching," before complaining about hating "Random" - a song she claims she wrote at 13 and is the only thing people this side of the Atlantic ever want to hear. Bored she continuously rolled her eyes at the DJ, and moaned at the crowd. She gave us "Love Me or Hate Me" before cheering the place into sudden violence with "Public Warning" and a scream of "mosh, mosh, mosh" into the crowds face. The opening intro set by her DJ was the tightest blend of dubstep, hip-hop and grime I've yet to hear and while busied posing right up in the lens of the scattered cameras, you got bored and eventually just wanted him to take over.

This was only meant to be a mini-set, having stumbled on the El Dorado of pop, SOV plays to the kids at venues like the massive Air Canada Centre on Gwen Stefani's tour before scalping the hipsters for a four song set for twenty dollars on the door later in the night. Whatever about Def Jam and her attempts stateside, Lady Sovereign was both tired and cranky -reduced to more a UK curio and novelty act. It's hard to figure where she stands as an artist now. Not so long ago she entered into this rather depressing confession at a similar small club show about being broke in the music industry stateside and how she hates what she is doing. Her tour dairies are over here.

Side note: Haven't these fuckwits seen Nathan Barley? Are these people in Super Super and the rest of this documentary for real? It actually sounds like a piss take of Hadouken - am I missing something here?

Labels: Gig Review, Lady Sovereign, Music, toronto