I became a pretty big Sate fan in a pretty short period of time. I first discovered her music when I was checking out all the acts announced for last year's Toronto Urban Roots Festival. I even put up a feature post on her music and the powerhouse track "The Warrior". From that first listening, I was hooked. The song would end up at number 6 in my list of my favourite songs of 2015.
I got to check out the full power of Sate, which can only truly be experienced at a live show, when the band played The Horseshoe for one of the TURF Club Bonus Series shows, opening for the venerable Fishbone. Everything I hoped I would experience came true. The band delivered power with groove, heaviness with soul and attitude with passion. I knew that I couldn't miss the band's Sunday festival slot on the South Stage. It was just as incredible.
Most recently, Sate participated in the second annual Cover Me Impressed benefit on Boxing Day, playing three amazing cover tunes. More on that later...
She and the band did not disappoint, sounding tight, powerful and excited to play this show. They played the tune "What Did I Do?" second. This tune has a video, embedded below, that was released on Friday. The song starts out with a slow, dirty, blues riff and Sate's forlorn wails, before kicking into gear and hammering out a deep groove. The set continued with "Know My Name", "Try" "Live On Your Love" and "Mama Talk To Me". We then got to the single most familiar to me and several others in the audience, "Warrior". We got to participate in a big, three-part sing-along for this tune. The set closing tune was "Silence". This latter song took us out on a high, high note with the repeating chorus ending. Take a listen to many of these tunes below. These are extremely powerful songs that get the audience just as whipped up as you might expect. Sate is truly one of the best live bands playing today, with a refreshing and invigorating sound and message.
While many bands don't do encores, I really hoped that Sate would return to the stage and treat us to more music. When the audience kept cheering and chanting for more, the band had to come back. Earlier in this post I mentioned that I would have more to say about Sate's appearance at Cover Me Impressed. There was one of her three covers in particular that I was super-impressed with. I thought that it was too good to be a one-off. Sate returned to the stage to play us her version of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs". It was incredible. I feel like it must be one of those dream songs for a band, and specifically a guitarist, to play on stage. They did an amazing job with this tune and I think it should be a regular part of their set.
"What Did I Do?"
"Know My Name"
"Try"
"Mama Talk to Me"
"Warrior"
"Silence"
