Hi friends and happy Monday! I’m coming at you with my last concert post of the year. I’m really excited that I got to go to 3 concerts this year! Today I’ll be talking all about my 6th time seeing The Maine!

The Maine
The Sweet Sixteen Tour
The Danforth Music Hall
Sunday, December 3, 2023

This was my last concert of the year, and probably my most anticipated. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the other two concerts I went to this year, but I love The Maine more than any other band, so the night before totally felt like Christmas Eve to me.

This is my sixth time seeing this band; I mean, if you’ve been following my blog long enough you’d have seen almost all the write ups I’ve written since seeing them for the first time in 2014.

This is also my second time seeing them at this venue, the only difference is that instead of seeing them perform from the floor, I saw them perform from the balcony, which wasn’t a bad experience. Because this venue is on the smaller side, I mean it’s a great size for intimate shows, it made being in the balcony not so far away.

But of course, before they could come on, they had two opening acts. The first was a band called Daisy Grenade. I was not prepared for two girls with a lot of energy to come barreling onto the stage. They gave me 90s grunge, grrl riot vibes. They also had three other guys in the band, but those two girls could hold their own. They were also a lot of fun to watch on stage as they bopped and jumped around stage.

I don’t know exactly the songs they sang because the setlist for the Toronto date isn’t online. But going off of their music, surprisingly I remember most of the songs they sang; I don’t remember the order, but I do know they opened with Riot. They also played Got It Bad, Guts, Cult Classic, Sick in the City, in which John O’Callaghan came out to sing with them, they had no idea he was going to do that, so that was fun. They also played a Nirvana cover, but I couldn’t tell you the song, I’m not really into Nirvana.

They really energized the crowd. After them was a band called flor, which had a bit of a following, which is pretty cool. I’ve never heard of them; I also can’t believe they played 10 songs, their set didn’t feel that long. They had such a groovy vibe to them, kinda like MGMT mixed with Arcade Fire kinda sound. I don’t really remember the names or the songs, but I do remember how they sounded and it was definitely a mood.

During one of their songs, I really couldn’t tell you which, the lead singer goes I want you guys to get really rowdy. The rowdiest wins this hat. He ends up in the crowd and picks a person, but when he comes back the rest of the band are like where’s the hat? He goes, oh I brought it with me, I thought I’d be efficient like that. I liked their rapport, they were all fun and joking with each other, telling each other that they loved each other, it was nice.

According to setlist, they played:

hold on
Every Night
Big Shot
Skate (I remember this one because all I could think about was going skating)
dancing around
warm blood
Same Color as the Sun
lmho
Future Shine
Play Along

Then just after 9 p.m. the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the five members of the Maine graced the stage and began to play. Before they could get a song out, John told the crowd “It’s been a while Toronto.” He claimed that four years was too long, and I highly agree, and they jumped into dose no. 2, which is the first song off their newest record and it really made me jam out… I mean that whole album is a jam (and I’m a little sad they didn’t play my favourite ‘leave in 5’… but I take what I got!).

This then led into I Must Be Dreaming and Diet Soda Society… which John didn’t even sing the opening line, he let the crowd do it and it was hilarious because the first line is “To be honest, I am full of shit” 😂

They then played The Sound of Reverie, Right Girl and my favourite song ever by them, (Un)Lost. That made up for not hearing my new favourite song, that’s for sure. I have a feeling they play that song all the time – I’m trying to think if they’ve played it every time I’ve seen them and I think so… aside from Warped Tour. Anyways!

Somewhere between those songs… my memory is slightly foggy… Garrett, the bass player pulled out this decibel meter, that John claims he made in his basement… but I’m sure he bought it. It looks like they’re measuring the crowd cheers every night and they wanted us to scream real loud. John goes, it’s been four years, you need to make up for it in noise. So we screamed, we reached 122 decibels, which apparently we beat Ohio the night before by 2 points AND we had a smaller crowd (yet! Still sold out, which I love!).   

The next song they played was Loved You a Little. My brother didn’t think they’d play it because Charlotte Sands and the lead singer of Thursday weren’t there, but I’ve been hearing them play it so I had a feeling they would. Plus, it’s one of their top songs on Spotify. After we sang the song, John goes thank you for lending your voices, which was very nice of him.

Someone had thrown this (it looked cross-stitched from where I was) disc thing onto the stage. I was wondering if John would read it, and he did! It was this couple’s journey with the Maine. They met at one of their concerts, they got married, had a honeymoon, and this show was their first anniversary. John was shocked and called themselves matchmakers. 

The next song was off their new record, how to exit a room, I like the ending of the song, so that was a lot of fun to scream the lyrics to. I feel like for the newer songs the crowd wasn’t as vocal, but I know I screamed ALL the words to EVERYTHING. I also have to say, this is probably the first concert, ever, where I’ve known every song and almost every single word to every song (minus blame because I don’t have the fast parts of that song memorized). 

They played Like We Did (Windows Down), which is a jam, love that song. I wish they played more from Pioneer, I miss that album.

Then John goes, justice for Forever Halloween, the forgotten album and they played Love & Drugs, which moved into Numb Without You.

Then we paused because it was time for us, the audience, to choose the next song. John goes, we have a lot of tunes… and it’s true they do, 9 albums and a few eps worth of tunes. Obviously they can’t play them all, so we were going to choose one of the songs. We would have to scream and whichever song got the higher rating on the decibel meter, would win. John goes, option two usually wins. People were already screaming and he goes, wait I haven’t given you the options yet. It was between We All Roll Along (which I voted for) or Bad Behavoir… which yes, ended up winning.

They played another new song, thoughts i have while lying in bed, which then rolled into Don’t Come Down, which is another great song… I’m am SO biased because they are ALL great songs.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard them play Saving Grace (or many songs from Black & White). I like that this acoustic set soon turned into Whoever She Is and the crowd all took out their phones and lighters, which made the place light up so bright.

Again, John yells justice for Forever Halloween, by playing the last half of that song and the guitar riffs at the end, that was so cool to hear live.

During the song, Everything I Ask For, John climbs on top of the speaker… I have NO idea why… to see us better? But it was fun to watch. Plus, the guy is still singing while climbing on top, that’s skill.

So after he gets down, he gets lower by going into the crowd to sing Sticky with the general admission crowd. He goes put your phones away, you can remember this moment.

Then as he’s getting back to the stage, Kennedy, one of their guitarist sang Lost in Nostalgia, which was really cool and he did an amazing job!

They then played Black Butterflies & Déjà Vu and I liked how all the lights got real blue to match the song. This then turned into Misery… I did not expect that, but it was a pleasant surprise because (again bias) but it’s a really good song. Then they played blame (the song I only know the chorus to).

We of course had to go to a classic, which is Girls Do What They Want, in which they always pick an audience member to come up and sing, and it’s always a guy because they sing “girls do what they want, boys do what they can”. So John brings up this guy and he goes, ‘do you know why I picked you, and why I’ve been looking at you the entire night? It’s because you’ve been singing along to every song.’ I also love that Setlist as “Fan known as ‘Dustin from Hamilton’ joined the stage” on the website. Dustin was fun, he and John jumped around onstage singing, what a time.

The night was coming to a close, everyone could feel it. John goes, we have two songs left and the crowd boos. He goes, do you have two more songs in you… I had way more than that in me, but alas we got Dirty, Pretty, Beautiful and the classic Another Night on Mars, in which John asks us if we came with a friend and if we did put an arm around them, and if you didn’t, it’s time to make a new friend… or more.

It was such a fun evening and I’m so happy I ended the year on this concert because it was definitely my favourite of the year. John promised to be back next year, because four years is too fucking long, so I hope that’s true.

They left the stage to Abba’s Dancing Queen, which was fabulous… which I made eye contact with a girl behind me and we sang along, it was a fun moment.

Here’s to more concerts next year!