TORONTO - Moby's dual musical personalities traded places all evening long on Monday night at Kool Haus.
Playing to a small crowd that filled about half the venue, the 44-year-old electro-dance-funk-blues-soul-rock veteran switched back and forth from the sombre blues ballads of his latest 2009 album, Wait For Me, to the feel-good rave-ups of his breakthrough disc, 1999's Play, unbelievably now a decade-old.
It made for a slightly schizophrenic two-hour night of music and Moby, playing electric guitar, piano and even conga drums alongside a five-to-six piece band, couldn't always maintain a consistent energy level amongst the crowd because of the constant switch-ups.
He also further tested the audience's patience by performing one new song, Pale Horses, in two different versions one after the other, and both obscure and well known covers, the former being Joy Divison's New Dawn Fades (from the Heat soundtrack) and the latter being Neil Young's Helpless during the encore.
Still, the singer-songwriter-DJ does possess a certain charm even if he's lost a lot of his clout since the heady days of Play's dominance when he brought his idol David Bowie to town to play the Molson Amphitheatre in 2002 as part of his short-lived Area:Two tour.
On Monday night, Moby shared lead vocal duties with opener and keyboardist Kelli Scar and a wonderful backup singer and there was plenty of other estrogen on stage in the form of a female violinist and bass player.
Song standouts ranged from the new songs like the title track from Wait For Me, sung by Scar, to the Bowie-esque Mistake, handled by Moby.
Otherwise, it was a virtual Play playlist that really got the crowd moving, ranging from the mindnumbing, chest-throbbing rock of Bodyrock, the catchy South Side, and the gospel beauty of Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad and Natural Blues.
And while introducing his first song he ever released, Go, featuring Laura Palmer's Theme from Twin Peaks, Moby recalled the first time he played Toronto as part of a rave in the early '90s at the Masonic Temple when a guy appeared on stage dressed as a tree and he decided to wrestle him.
The New Yorker has a well-known fondness for Canada in general and Toronto specifically and repeated his desire to live north of the border in the past and possibly still in the future while dedicating Porcelain to "all the beautiful people of Toronto."
"Deep down I love Canada more than the U.S.," he said. "It's like the smarter, cooler cousin to the U.S."
He said his favourite song to perform in concert was yet another Scar-sung ballad, Great Escape, from his 2002 album, 18, but it was another tune from that disc, In My Heart, sung by his backup singer, which resonated more deeply, along with We Are All Made Of Stars featuring Moby back on lead vocals.
He also hit one out of the ballpark with the upbeat dance song, Raining Again, before an encore that had both hits (Extreme Ways from 18) and misses (an overlong version of Honey from Play).
