All Pop - Artists

SOULDECISION
Danforth Music Hall, Toronto
Thursday, February 15, 2001
TORONTO -- soulDecision. Never could figure out that name -- or say it quickly three times in a row. Until now.

SoulDecision, it would seem, decided to sell their souls in exchange for Guess jeans and an excellent marketing campaign that has injected them into Canada's pop music bloodstream like a 24-hour flu virus. That's the only way to explain the rise of this Vancouver trio of bronzed heartthrobs and their mosquito-weight pop.

Of course, most of the 1,200 screaming fans who packed into the Danforth Music Hall to see soulDecision last night would disagree with this old curmudgeon (for the record, I'm the same age as SD singer Dave Bowman, 28).

They'd argue that soulDecision make catchy tunes and have looks that light up a room, and they wouldn't be lying. After all, they're the ones buying the band's hit 2000 CD, No One Does It Better, and who caused last night's show to sell out in half and hour.

But watching that show, it was tough to see how music could possibly factor ahead of soulDecision's image as a newfangled -- you know I'm gonna say it -- boy-band.

SoulDecision don't like to be called a boy-band, a point that's been stressed ad nauseam in interviews. They play their own instruments and write their own songs -- though the latter is hardly something to brag about.

Fact is, these guys shouldn't be so down on the boy-band thing: Between watching 'N Sync or the Backstreet Boys hilariously monkeying around to the sound of tepid R&B-pop, and watching soulDecision earnestly stand and deliver tepid R&B-pop, I'd probably take the former if forced to chose.

And all this "serious musician" stuff is a bit suspect. Are they better than the boy-bands just because they had a hand in their own creation?

It's a wonder label Universal found three serious musicians who wouldn't be embarrassed by those tinkling keyboards, flossy hooks and squeaky-clean love tunes that are completely devoid of the kind of sexuality that is supposed to engross R&B -- let alone find three guys who've been doing it since 1991. It's shopping mall music.

Cute looks aside, soulDesicion were like a unionized backing band that sacked their frontmen and took over the mikes.

Bowman, singer-keyboardist Trevor Guthrie, keyboardist Ken Lewko and their three support players took the stage under cloak of darkness as the audience provided one of the few dramatic visual moments of the evening by twirling their genuine soulDecision glow-sticks.

Ooh It's Kinda Crazy was accented with some synchronized footwork -- nothing too fancy, as Guthrie had to handle that strap-on synthesizer thing. I Don't Need Anyone recalled Wham! in all its bleach-toothed glory. Feelin' You was turned into a singalong, while hits Faded and Gravity were, like the latter song says, "unavoidable." The band even trotted out a version of Duran Duran's Hungry Like The Wolf, performed by Bowman with the passion of a 12-year-old playing Simon LeBon in front of the bedroom mirror.

It's tough to come down too hard on the group's actual singing, what with a sound mix that cheated the audience out of anything approaching an audible facsimile of the album. But then, soulDecision could have won this crowd over with socks stuffed in their mouths.

No One Does It Better?

We'll give one sign-toting fan the last word: "TREVOR IS SOOO HOT!!!"

Time for some soul-searching