Toronto – Every June, this little festival called North By Northeast rolls thru Toronto like a hurricane of something, and people from all over Canada come here to play music in hopes of becoming the next big something. It is quite a weekend. There are concerts in every place imaginable, and yet..half my coworkers didn’t even know it was happening. How odd is that? I was lucky enough to score a media pass courtesy of a friend of mine (this industry..its all about who you know). What does this pass mean, you ask? It means a goodies bag, and a chance to not pay for any shows. Also, you can bypass lineups. Pretty sweet, I guess.
So it was Saturday, and I was pretty damn tired. Toronto FC on Wednesday, Interpol Thursday, Voxtrot last nite.. It would of been easy to call it a night and go relax somewhere. But sometimes you have to choose between what is easy..and what is right. What is right, obviously, is to use this pass and go see some hyped show, and bypass an entire line of people while flaunting the pass and walking right on in and looking mildly disinterested at the show.
The show in question was the CBC Radio 3 showcase at the Horseshoe. The show consisted of three hyped Canadian acts – Ohbijou, Sebastian Grainger and the Montagnes and You say Party We say Die!. My roommate scored a pass as well and we headed down to the Horsehoe via the trolley. Holy lineup batman! When we got to the corner of Queen and Spadina, there was a lineup around the block. I was like ..man those 1.50 street dogs must be really popular. However, upon further inspection, it turned out it was to get to this CBC show. I was shocked…this many people listen to radio?
My first thought was that we were not going to get in, but then I remember this little thing dangling around my neck. I went up to the volunteer manning the door and asked what the deal was, and he was like ‘well the capacity is full right now, but if you line up here, we will let in badge owners first..and then the peasants.’ So five minutes later, we were let into the Horseshoe, walking pass the non-special people, I can just sense their beady little eyes shoot lasers of hate and distaste toward us types and it hurt. Kinda. I am glad this was not an emo show, or everyone would have pulled out razorblades and cut themselves i bet.
In all honesty, this is a fairly crappy system to do a music festival. Fans spend like 30 bucks to buy a bracelet, and line up for hours to see their favorite bands. They should be allowed in first, as they probably care the most. I always thought CMW was the industry show, however, with the amount of passes they hand out, thats probably not the case. Anyways, I have just realized I have written four paragraphs and there has been no mention of music anywhere.
Ohbijou is a local toronto band, listening to them, you would think they are an arts and craft band, because they sound like an arts and craft band. That is not a diss or anything, as they play really mellow and good music. They are a large band, comprising of half males, and half females (just like planet earth). The lead vocalist is female, and an asian of some sort. I couldn’t really figure out what kind of asian she was, so i spent the better half of the show analyzing it. I think she is filipino, but she can also be spanish. the name is “Casey Mecija” so definately, she is not a chink. That is what asians do, as soon as we see other asians, we try to figure out whereabouts they are from, and then judge them accordingly. Here is a link of their music:
http://www.myspace.com/ohbijou
Sebastian Grainger and his band came on next. Sebastian was one half of the duel DFA 1979. His solo stuff was suppose to be more poppy then DFA, and I guess this is true. His act was a 3 piece set with a drummer and some dude who looks like a cross between Triple H and Meat loaf on bass. He rocked out pretty hard. As for the show itself, the music was pretty good, and the highlight of the show was the last song, which was synth heavy and sounded nothing like all the other songs. kinda weird.
I missed the third act, because I started getting hungry, so I went to go eat a burrito. Overall, the music tonite was very good considering I have not heard any of these songs.
Review: 3/5
Here is a link to the entire show. you can listen to it.
http://radio3.cbc.ca/
