Last weekend (Aug 7) I went down to the Toronto Islands, specially Olympic Island for a Canadian Music Festival. It was a concert consisting of only local Cdn talent, mostly from Toronto and Montreal. Bands performing were Broken Social Scene, Sloan, Sam Roberts, The Stills, Constantines, Pilate, Buck 65, The Archade Fire and Death From Above.

I was there to mainly see BSS, which turned out to be incredible. It was DAMN close, b/c by the time all of us got together and rushed to the Ferry and through security, it was 3:10 PM... EXACTLY when they ended up starting. Anyway, BSS is a local project from members from such bands as Metric, By Divine Right and Stars that started i think 3 years ago and has blown up to insane indie proportions. What amazed me most was that there were 8-10 musicians on stage at once for each song. For one song they had 5 guitars, 1 bass, 1 drum, 2 vocals and synth keys. It was CRAZY. You'd think the resulting output would be absolute noise, but it was completely the opposite. It was an incredible experience.

The whole set felt like the end of a benefit concert when all the musicians come on stage to perform a few songs all together.. heh. They were all having fun onstage, with lots of respect and love for one another. I have to admit that the resultant stage presence was lacking a bit, but the amazing music they created made up for it ten fold.

Speaking of love, that was the general sentiment of the festival. I loved how it was very chill and warm hearted. There was no rushing the stage, moshing or pushing. For example, at the last song for the Stills set, the drummer from BSS came on stage to take place of the Stills drummer - he was now going to sing this last song. He prefaced the song by saying (paraphrasing):

"Do you see this shirt? It's a picture of me and Andrew (singer/guitars for BSS). We just got married a few weeks ago, and I want to dedicate this song to him"

Andrew came on stage and accompanied singing this song with his new husband. I commend those who have the courage to publically announce a) they're queer and b) they're recently married to thousands of people. It was quite a great sight to see. At the end of the song, the 2 left the stage first and i saw them give each other a big hug and kiss on the cheek, which made me think of my SBF and wished he was there with me.

Anyway, after the 2 singers left the stage, each member of the band left one after another, slowly stripping down the down one layer at a time: Vocals -> Keys -> Guitar 1 ->Bass ->Guitar 2 (also the lead singer for the rest of the songs). Guitar 2 stayed on stage even after stopping and watched the BSS drummer keeping the last part of the music going. He then slowly walked up just in front of the drums, and in a split second the drummer stopped and they both stood and reached over the drums to give each other a big hug.

GOTTA LOVE CDN LOVE!!!

Watching SLOAN was a walk down high school memory lane. Man, for some reason it reminded me of the lead singer of my old garage band, especially during Money City Maniacs. It was a greatest hits set, b/c i think i recongnized 95% of the songs they did, which ranged from Money City, California, The Good In Everyone and the one with the horns: "ba, ba-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da" :P

Over all it was a great festival. All he musicians kept saying how relaxed and comfortable they were, sharing the stage with fellow CDN acts. All the bands that i saw were very good and musicians periodically came on stage to sing/play during each others' performance (e.g. BSS drummer for the Stills). Even K-OS made an appearance on stage and did a little improv rap during Sam Roberts' "Brother Down". I have a bit of an issue with good ol Sammy, but that is for another post :P.

I went with with a friend from NXNE and met a whole bunch of her friends, plus running into a few of mine while i was there. It was great to hang out and meet some very cool people, and i should be seeing some of them in the next few weeks too. It was a great time had by all!

I hope they do another CDN rock fest next year, so i can look forward to going again sometime soon!

Take care,

RE

"eat drink and be merry"