Ontario indie rockers perform love-letter performance for Edmonton

At my sister’s house, in her bedroom, sitting in a drawer, is a scrap of bright orange construction paper. It’s over nine years old now, and it’s a bit wrinkled, but this piece of paper holds the signatures of the members of the Ontario rock band Tokyo Police Club. 

Someone signed it, “heard it was your birthday,” despite it being a lie. That Sept. 6, 2015, was not one of our birthdays — it was the Sonic Boom music festival at Borden Park. It was raining when my sister, our friend, and I  wandered under the cover of the artists’ autograph tent.

On Sept. 18, 2024, just shy of a decade after our meeting in Borden Park, Tokyo Police Club (T.P.C.) played their last show that Edmonton audiences would see at Midway Music Hall. 

In between hits like “Tell Me Your Favourite Colour” and “Nature of the Experiment,” singer/bassist Dave Monks regaled the audience with memories of their time with our city. 

“I don’t know what your meet-cute with our band was,” Monks said to the crowd. “We’ve done a lot of Edmonton.”

Like my sister with her scrap paper, I’ve held onto the memory of our meet-cute, even if I was already a big fan when we met the band under the tent at Borden Park. 

And for a brief moment, nobody else at the festival seemed to notice autographing had started. It was just me, my sister, and our friend shooting the shit with one of Canadian Indie’s defining acts. We were insanely spoiled.

After all, it seemed like you could always count on Tokyo Police Club to swing back into Edmonton to play Sonic Boom or the Starlite Room, tune into Sonic 102.9 and hear a great new single, or boot up YouTube to watch their latest music video.

For the longest time, Tokyo Police Club was one of the best Canadian rock bands you could see, but maybe I got too used to seeing them. And too comfortable with thinking they’d always come back. 

Flash forward over nine years and I was watching Tokyo Police Club’s last performance in Edmonton. 

Multi-instrumentalist and audio wizard Graham Wright recalled being introduced to the city when the band played a college show during the fever of the Oilers’ ‘06 playoff run. 

No humour was lost on the fact the Oilers had just lost the Stanley Cup Final again. 

While they played classics like “Bambi” and newer tunes like “Ready to Win,” I noticed myself jamming to even the songs I couldn’t remember the names of. And before our time together was up, the band brought the house down with an encore performance of “Your English is Good” — the first T.P.C song I ever heard. 

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Photos Supplied