The Sam Roberts Band returned to Victoria for the first time in a decade to perform at a sold out Capital Ballroom Friday night.
It’s the first tour for the band since the pandemic. It has also been 18 years since Sam Roberts has performed his solo music at a club setting in the city since a Sugar Nightclub show in 2006. The last time the band performed on Vancouver Island was at Laketown Ranch in 2017.
It was clear that a lot of long-time Sam Roberts fans were in the building based on the demographics we observed and the fact many were unfamiliar of how to access Capital Ballroom’s upper level.
Roberts kicked off the show with the opening track of 2023 album ‘The Adventures of Ben Blank’, ‘The Ballad of Ben Blank’. That set the tone for a nearly two-hour 21-song set of Canadian rock and roll.
One thing a casual fan might forget until experiencing a Sam Roberts show live is just how many radio singles he’s had in more than two decades. From ‘Them Kids’ to ‘Where Have All The Good People Gone’, ‘Projection’, ‘Picture of Love’, ‘Hard Road’, ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ and ‘Don’t Walk Away Eileen’, Roberts set was full of songs that have been in high rotation on the radio at some point.
In one of the few breaks to talk to the audience, Roberts told the Capital Ballroom audience that ‘Dead End’ was partially written in Victoria. More specifically it was written at the Sticky Wicket.
“We were on tour and we had to have a record ready to record basically as the tour finished,” Roberts told the audience. “We opened for the Tragically Hip at the Royal Theatre. But we had already booked the studio, but none of the songs had been written. We were staying at The Strath. I remember sitting there at The Sticky Wicket frantically writing the words to ‘Dead End’. Every single word of that song is true. I’d been living with my parents. Borrowing money from my kid brother. Whatever it took to keep the band, the hope of playing music for a living alive for as long as I could. And now there’s this chance. Here’s an opportunity and things are happening, but what are you going to make of it? Every song better count, you know. Sitting there, here in Victoria, BC writing that song, going like, all right. You’ve got one shot. So to play that song in front of you tonight all these years later, it’s a beautiful feeling.”
Roberts had a four song encore starting with ‘We’re All in This Together’ and closing the show with his 2002 breakout hit ‘Brother Down’.
Opening the night was a local favourite in Miina. The band formerly known as Carmanah performed a short 35 minute set and managed to fit about 8 songs and also managed to fit all six members of the band in the small amount of stage real estate that was available to them.
As an opening act, Miina performed to a nearly full house by the time they took the stage at 8pm. When you consider that they sold out the McPherson Playhouse in May 2023 you understand why so many were there early.
Their set was only the third major show as Miina in Victoria since debuting the new name at that McPherson Playhouse show and performing at Rifflandia 2023.
It was also the first time the band has performed at Capital Ballroom in five years since Carmanah headlined in 2019.
Sam Roberts Band Set List:
1. The Ballad of Ben Blank
2. With a Bullet
3. Them Kids
4. Bad Country
5. Where Have All the Good People Gone?
6. Let It In
7. Projection
8. Picture of Love
9. I Like the Way You Talk About the Future
10. Cascades
11. Metal Skin
12. Hard Road
13. Dead End
14. Spellbound
15. Bridge to Nowhere
16. Afterlife
17. Don’t Walk Away Eileen
———–
18. We’re All in This Together
19. All of Us
20. Everybody Needs Love
21. Brother Down
