At last, The Madness Of Many Tour came rolling into Intervals’ Aaron Marshall’s hometown of Toronto, and the Opera House was packed. Surprisingly, it was my first time seeing Animals As Leaders, and they did not disappoint. To open up the night, Australia’s Plini performed his usual brilliant and comedic set, along with the backup of Marshall, drummer Troy Wright, and the underrated insanity that is bassist Simon Grove. Plini himself seemed to be rather happy to be back in Toronto, a feeling that was echoed from the bands to come later on in the evening. Fan favourites “Paper Moon” and “Selenium Forest” made an appearance among the banter, which included “this next song isn’t about anything… because it’s instrumental”.
As their set came to a close, Plini announced that they were off to have a drink, but would be back as Intervals – and so about half an hour later, the foursome now known among fans as ‘Plintervals’ waltzed out once again and entertained the crowd with one of my favourites, “I’m Awake”. A lot of the setlist was off of the most recent album, ‘The Shape Of Colour’, which they had played in full when they were here in April. Every single member of ‘Plintervals’ is a phenomenal musician, and it was a pleasure to see them play again.
And then, there was Animals As Leaders. As amazing as the entire set was, the highlight was definitely having “Arithmophobia” as the opener. Also off of the recent ‘The Madness Of Many’ album were “Ectogenesis”, “The Glass Bridge”, “The Brain Dance”, and “Inner Assassins”, as well as older tracks like “Physical Education”, “Tempting Time”, “Do Not Go Gently”, and “The Woven Web”. Although it would have been nice to have had an encore, I don’t think anyone was complaining. The trading of flawless riffage and soloing between Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes, held together by Matt Garstka’s impeccable accented grooves, took already impressive songs to a whole other level.
All in all, the sold-out Opera House saw a very exciting evening of instrumental prog metal (who knew nerds liked crowd surfing so much?). The sound could have been crisper, but then again, I was standing right in front of the amps. However it must be said that for a couple of jazzy bands without a front person to rile up the crowd, Animals As Leaders and ‘Plintervals’ really know how to put on an energetic, memorable show.