Although their set was short (around half an hour) and they hit the road soon after leaving the stage, the band made quite an impression on the small crowd including myself. As I love my city, and Toronto seems to monopolize the indie press, I will only grudgingly give these guys praise. But praise I will give them. Their sound harkens back to the days of Joy Division and New Order (as all the press I read has said!). There most known song “Understanding the New Violence” brought to mind The Stone Roses’ opener off their self-titled debut album of 1989, “I Wanna Be Adored”, if not necessarily in the subject matter, definitely in the melody.

After the band played their first song, a small crowd moved onto the dance floor to take a closer look. The dark and brooding sound made the audience curious and the dance floor turned into a corral for zombie-like onlookers. They stayed there barely moving for Uncut’s full set until the trance was broken with the band’s abrupt arrest in playing and Ian’s hurried statement “Thanks a lot, buy our CD.”

With both Nicolas Johansen and Uncut giving good performances it made the bar’s patrons forget somewhat that A Perfect Day never did show up for their set. I hope the band had car trouble or some other catastrophe (other than injury or death) that stopped them from honouring that commitment because no one did get any discount off the ticket price. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt but it definitely wasn’t a professional maneuver by the band to say the very least.