  k.d. lang and her new band, The Siss Boom Bang, perform a free concert at David Pecaut Square in Toronto on Friday June 17, 2011. (Ernest Doroszuk, QMI Agency)
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TORONTO - k.d. lang’s new album is called Sing It Loud.
And so she did on Friday night at David Pecaut Square (formerly Metro Square) as the 49-year-old big-voiced singer gave a rare free outdoors show as part of Luminato on a beautiful summer night in the downtown core.
With trees and nearby buildings providing a dramatic setting for a dramatic voice - one of the world’s best - lang and her latest group, the five-piece Siss Boom Bang, delivered an entertaining, at times moving, 70-minute show brimming with new alt-country material from her latest disc recorded in Nashville and older favourites.
lang kicked off the night with I Confess from Sing It Loud followed by the season appropriate older tune Summer Fling and another new one, The Water’s Edge, before kicking into high gear with Miss Chatelaine accompanied by accordion while leaping around the stage.
The Alberta native said it was the beginning of mini-tribute to her homeland as she followed that with two stunning covers - Neil Young’s Helpless and Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah - the latter which brought the audience to its feet as she delivered big note after big note.
“We’re going to take a trip north, the next couple of songs are for y’all,” she explained and the crowd, both those in a small seated VIP section at the front, and the larger masses standing throughout the square, ate it up.
Then lang, dressed in a black suit, white shirt and red scarf as was guitarist/musical director Joe Pisapia, formerly of Guster, who co-produced and co-wrote many of the songs on Sing it Loud, keyboardist Daniel Clarke, drummer Fred Eltringham, guitarist Joshua Grange and bassist Lex Price, returned to the new album with A Sleep With No Dreaming and then a cover, Chris Isaak’s dreamy Western Stars.
Sadly, there were none in the overcast city sky but the loveliness of lang’s voice and Grange’s pedal steel playing made you long for the sight of them.
And before you go thinking that lang has returned to her Reclines beginning, the new songs are still pretty low-key, although backed by such instruments as banjo (Habit of Mind) on occasion.
Right before she performed new song, Sorrow Nevermore, featuring lang herself on banjo, she addressed her fans directly and they responded with the first audience clapalong of the night.
“If you feel yourself pulled towards the stage - I want you to know, this is normal,” she joked.
She ended the set with the biggest hit of her career, Constant Craving, but lang also seemed to enjoy a good cover, like when she trotted out Little River Band’s Reminiscing right before the end, or Talking Heads’ Heaven, which was one of two encore songs.
But it was the thrilling new tune, Sugar Buzz, that really wowed as it closed the night with duelling electric guitarists Pisapia and Grange lending an alt-rock bent to the proceedings.
SET LIST:
I Confess
Summer Fling
The Water’s Edge
Miss Chatelaine
Helpless (Neil Young cover)
Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen cover)
A Sleep With No Dreaming
Western Stars (Chris Isaak cover)
Perfect Word
Habit Of Mind
Reminiscing (Little River Band cover)
Sorrow Nevermore
Constant Craving
ENCORE:
Heaven (Talking Heads cover)
Sugar Buzz
