Saturday, March 4, 2000

Prozzak wows Toronto

TORONTO--Canadian pop was alive and bopping tonight at the Warehouse.

Hundreds of young Prozzak fans milled about in Simon & Milo T-Shirts while female soulDecision fanatics showed up in short skirts and sparkles, hoping to be noticed by the incredibly attractive band members.

Meanwhile...McMaster & James fans just wanted to dance to the smooth sounds of the Winnipeg duo.

soulDecision kicked off the show to the delight of teenage girls in the audience. The boys were in fine form, getting the crowd properly riled up with their hit single, "Faded".

McMaster & James slowed the pace a tad but sounded polished and were obviously into the performance.

Then... the energy level went up a couple of notches and thousands of lights and lasers filled the room. Prozzak was coming.

Projected onto the movie screen beside the stage were the images of Prozzak's heroes, Simon and Milo - one love sick and the other oblivious to anything but the music.

The show began with a description of the Prozzak story (Simon and Milo meet during a battle in a distant land and are suddenly sucked up into another time zone where they are sent on a mission to find true love for the heartsick Milo. ) "Only true love holds the key to your destiny" said a distinctly Europop voice. And so, the show began.

Jason and James (the voice of Prozzak) started the show off with a bang, quickly breaking into their hit, "Strange Disease".

The opening number was a huge success -- everyone began dancing and were avidly watching the cartoon occurrences on the movie screen.

In an earlier interview with AllPop, James (Milo) claimed their live show would "Make Kiss look like 54-40". Although tonight's performance wasn't quite flamboyant enough to put Kiss to shame, it was an original experience.

Prozzak's live performance was truly an interactive event. During several numbers, the lyrics would be printed on the screen so the audience could sing along. Sometimes, the computerised voice and co-ordinating animation commanded the audience to clap, touch their toes, sway their arms -- and the audience complied.

Simon and Milo even answered questions about romantic troubles from visitors to their website--the deep advice of the evening: "It's ok for the girl to make the first move."

Prozzak even granted their fans a chance to see themselves on the big screen by projecting video images of the audience onto it.

James and Jason, the voice, music and creators behind Prozzak, took second stage to the special effects however. They seemed like tiny, back-up singers to the larger-than-life Technicolor characters behind them.

Dwarfed by their cartoon alter-egos, they were enthusiastic but seemed a little out of place. Occasionally, James and Jason's presence on stage seemed to break the illusion of their cartoons. In a way, it was disappointing to be faced with the fact that the loveable cartoons were manipulated by the very normal looking musicians.

The two musicians stage presence wasn't as important as communicating the complicated love affairs of Simon and the adventures of Milo in the fashion world. This was a show that's purpose was to include the audience and involve them in plot lines.

The performance provided enough lights, lasers and sounds to induce an epileptic fit. Providing more of a techno musical than a pop concert, Prozzak seemed to be attempting to break new ground.

Watching Simon's painful affairs go wrong to the tune of Prozzak's up-tempo, repetitive songs, accompanied by vibrant images, became almost as addictive as a daytime drama (although sometimes the choruses filled with Simon's wines became monotonous).

When Prozzak finished the night off with "Sucks To Be You" there was a part of the audience that was hoping there'd be just one more song that would tell us whether Simon and Milo's adventures would finish with a happy ending or whether Simon would be heartbroken forever.

But, as they say, 'that's all she wrote', or all they wrote for now that is. Judging from the crowd's enthusiasm, Prozzak will be back.

		Concert rating