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Review: City and Colour brings patented sound to Kelowna

City and Colour are touring their latest album ‘A Pill for Loneliness’ across Canada throughout November

Dallas Green and his band City and Colour had the nearly sold-out crowd on their feet at Prospera Place on Sunday.

The show ran for nearly three hours with openers Jacob Banks and Ben Rogers both playing lengthy sets before Dallas Green and his band set the mood with his spectacular vocals and blues-influenced melodies.

Originally from St. Catherines, Ont., Green is a Juno Award winner who is also known for his role in the Canadian Hardcore outfit Alexisonfire.

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The name City and Colour comes from his own name: Dallas, a city and Green, a colour. He originally chose the name because he felt uneasy putting his debut album ‘Sometimes’ out under his own name.

Since the beginning of October, City and Colour have been touring their latest album ‘A Pill for Loneliness’ as a five-piece band, which includes a guitarist, bassists, drummer and keyboardist.

A ‘Pill for the Loneliness’ embarks into uncharted territory for Green. Most of the album is the biggest sounding of his career, which flawlessly translated to the acoustics in Prospera Place. Green opened the show with the albums lead single Astronaut, a song with soaring guitars backed by his down-to-earth lyrical content that features sentiments about dysfunctional relationships and social isolation.

After opening the show with two songs off the new album, Green had the crowd singing along when he played his hit single Fragile Bird. His mid-concert solo performances of Northern Wind and Little Hell were enough to give you chills and were greeted with big cheers.

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The band concluded the show with a three-song encore that finished with fan-favourite ‘Sleeping Sickness.’ Green also quietly honoured the late Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip by asking the audience to sing his verse in the song.

In terms of the production, the stage was illuminated with dozens of spotlights at multiple levels. The sound was also well done, but Dallas Green’s vocals were sometimes overpowered by the volume of the keyboard.

Beyond the music, Green is donating $1 from every ticket sold to Indpsire (indspire.ca) to build a brighter future forIndigenous students and to MusiCounts (musicounts.ca), which puts musical instruments into the hands of kids who need it most.