Injured Sloan Barely Get By With a Little Help From Their Friends at V Fest

"I broke my collar bone so this will be a Sloan and friends set," announced singer-bassist Chris Murphy as the CanRock legends took to the Virgin Festival stage in Ontario on Saturday night.

Still recovering from surgery after being the unfortunate victim of a hit-and-run -- Murphy was knocked off his bicycle by an apparent drunk driver in late-July -- the usually vivacious Murphy was mostly kept to vocal and tambourine duties while a series of musician pals, including their merch guy Kevin Hilliard, stood in for the injured bassist.

Perhaps it was the nerves of playing their first hometown show since the accident or maybe they were getting used to the several new members, but the band -- which featured as many as seven members onstage -- came off slightly shambolic at times. Think Jay Ferguson's Broken Social Scene cohorts at their most unrehearsed.

Sloan managed to mostly keep it together during set standards such as 'Losing California' and 'The Lines You Amend,' but a slower than usual 'Money City Maniacs' fell apart completely as their closing number. Lead guitarist Patrick Pentland played the solo at normal pace, halting the momentum built by the song's self-wound air raid siren intro and sending the group into a slow jam to pull themselves back together.

The whole ordeal led Murphy to jokingly tell his supporting cast of players, "When my arm gets better we're gonna fire all you a--holes."