Khoa Tran for Front Page News – Stars is a hard-working band. Since 2010, the band has released two studio albums and has been touring extensively around the world. In a recent interview for Postmedia News, singer (and “co-frontperson”) Amy Millan describes Stars as “the biggest band nobody’s heard of.” Indeed, the band has been at this for some time now, since 2001 when Torquil Campbell (the other “co-frontperson”) and Chris Seligman released Nightsongs in 2001. My own introduction to the band came in my college radio hosting days, with 2003’s Heart, which also cemented the band’s lineup of Campbell, Seligman, Evan Cranley, Amy Millan, and Pat McGee, to this very day.

The members of Stars are pretty much all multi-instrumentalists. Most of them are also members of the iconic Canadian indie rock collective Broken Social Scene.

But the most important tidbit about the band, perhaps, as they played the first of two nights at Montreal’s Théatre Corona Virgin Mobile on Notre-Dame Street last night, is that Stars is a Montreal band. Joined by ex-The Dears touring guitarist Christopher McCarron and violinist Jesse Zubot (also, by no less than six disco balls), Stars is touring in support of its latest studio album The North, released in September 2012. The stage backdrop, the cover art to the most recent album, depicts Habitat 67, an architectural landmark from this city’s Expo ’67 glory days.

Playing a homecoming show, the band seemed relaxed and at ease playing material from this latest album, including the title track, “The North,” “”Hold On When You Get Love and Let Go When You Give It,” and “A Song is a Weapon.” The latter was written for current Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, for whom Torquil Campbell is publicly known to have little love (the song was ironically dedicated to Harper at the show, along with some choice words). Selections from the band’s back catalogue included“One More Night (Your Ex-Lover Remains Dead),” from 2004’s Set Yourself on Fire, and “We Don’t Want Your Body” from 2010’s The Five Ghosts.

Ending the set-proper with “Walls” and the encore with an audience request or “Calendar Girl” (Millan claimed it wasn’t from a “planted” audience member), Torquil Campbell reminded those in attendance that he and his bandmates would be back the following night, and that they would also be “in the neighbourhood” for the rest of their lives.

Stars will play another show tonight at the Théatre Corona Virgin Mobile with opening act Cold Specks. Tickets are available atwww.evenko.ca

Stars perform at Theatre Corona Virgin Mobile on Friday March 15th, 2013