Skip to content
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Derek
    • Gary
    • Halley/Celeste
    • Paul
    • Ricky
    • Vik
  • Concerts
  • Reviews
    • Albums
    • Venue
    • Movies
    • Year End Reviews
  • Festivals
    • Canadian Music Week
    • Hot Docs
    • North By Northeast
    • Planet in Focus
    • Primavera
    • South By Southwest
  • Contact Us
Menu
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Derek
    • Gary
    • Halley/Celeste
    • Paul
    • Ricky
    • Vik
  • Concerts
  • Reviews
    • Albums
    • Venue
    • Movies
    • Year End Reviews
  • Festivals
    • Canadian Music Week
    • Hot Docs
    • North By Northeast
    • Planet in Focus
    • Primavera
    • South By Southwest
  • Contact Us

NXNE Concert Review: Spiral Beach, Whippersnapper Gallery, June 19th

Posted on
21 Jun 2009
by
Mark

Spiral Beach

Toronto – Last Friday night found us at the Whippersnapper Gallery in the heart of Little Italy. It hadn’t occured to me that Taste of Little Italy was happening during NXNE, so College street was extra-packed. Opening the night at the Whippersnapper was Spiral Beach, a Toronto-based foursome that plays a collection of rock-pop songs.

The best part of this show was the enthusiasm that this young band brought to the table. They really enjoyed themselves up there and really got into it, and that energy was felt by the audience. They played loud and they played proud. Their brand of pop-rock does harken back to the B-52’s.

Their rock does have a gritty weirdness to it; the NXNE write-up defines their songs as “oddball pop songs” and I would agree. I saw elements of this that worked both for and against the band at different times in the set. Sometimes the long introspective weird avant-guarde shouted lyrics were really, uh, avant-guarde. On the other hand, there were a few moments where they transitioned very artfully between parts of the song where you don’t dance very hard to the part of the song where you dance very hard. That was done very well and got people dancing very hard.

PrevPreviousNXNE Concert Review: Elephant Stone, Supermarket, June 18
NextNXNE Concert Review: Matt & Kim, Whippersnapper Gallery & Wrongbar, June 19thNext

SEARCH

FOLLOW US

Facebook Twitter Flickr Foursquare Rss Inbox

THE PAST

Archives

TAGS

Tags
British Music Embassy (10) Canadian Music Fest (11) canadian music week (20) cmf (10) cmw (42) concert (9) el mocambo (9) fringe (26) Great Lake Swimmers (10) guelph (9) horseshoe tavern (23) hot docs (103) jazz (12) Joel Plaskett (10) jukebox the ghost (15) lee's palace (27) marina and the diamonds (10) Massive Attack (10) mod club (12) NXNE (94) of monsters and men (11) Phoenix (15) play reviews (11) Pulp (11) Roskilde Festival (16) rural alberta advantage (10) sharon van etten (10) suede (12) summerworks (34) SXSW (479) SXSW 2022 (11) SXSW 2024 (11) SXSW Online (18) the antlers (11) the cure (9) the national (10) the xx (11) Tokyo Police Club (9) Toronto (25) toronto fringe (14) Toronto Jazz Festival (55) turf (13) tweeview (10) Video (9) zeus (10)
The Panic Manual

We are a collective of individuals bringing you the latest in concert reviews, indie, britpop, Canadian, twee and all sorts of other music, movies, tv and everything else you like. Follow the manual to live a pleasant and fulfilling life.

All rights reserved