I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: September 26, 2026] Smug LLC

I’m not sure what drew my attention to Sincere Engineer, but as soon as I heard them, I was hooked.  I was also really excited that they were playing soon after I’d heard of them.

I hadn’t heard of their first opener, Smug, LLC, who are (is) from Toronto.  I looked up the band and learned that it is actually a guy–Drew Thomas.  I hadn’t heard of him either, but evidently he had been a round for a second or two.  He fronted bands like Single Mothers and The Drew Thomson Foundation and has earned two Juno Award nominations.

I had no idea he was anything other than just a dude who made fun, funny music.   His songs are very dancey with lots of bass and other sound effects.

When his set started, he clicked on a laptop which started the music and a movie projector.  The video screen showed clips of movies and TV shows and clips of Drew walking around and each song had the lyrics on the screen, which was pretty smart.

Drew danced around the stage and sang.  And that’s all he did.  But he was funny and infectious and he had some interesting charisma.

About midway through his set a tall guy came and kind of stood in front of me (which was weird because there was plenty of room) but he knew the songs really well [turned out he was the guitarist for Stay Inside].

Some of the clips were from Moonstruck and Repo Man and some old B movies.  It was kind of hard to decide who to watch–the video or him since he was usually on the other side of the stage.  And yea, the bass lines are consistently great.  I really enjoyed his set a lot.  But for reasons I don’t understand, he only played six songs (the entire New Exciting Doom album).  Most other shows on the tour, he played two more songs from his January 2026 release.  His whole set was about 15 minutes, and these other two songs total 5 minutes, so I’m guessing he either had somewhere to be or some kind of medical situation.

But I mean, you can’t ask more of an opening band, than to come in, have a great 15 minutes of fun and get out.  I’m glad I arrived on time.

Little Gusts ♠
Shoulda Died ♠
Somewhere Else ♠
Pillowcase ♠
Campaign Finance ♠
Exciting Doom ♠

♠ New Exciting Doom