by: $var (Thursday
The night was all and all neither a huge success nor a terrible disaster. The bands themselves gave everything, and had a great show, how ever under attended it was. The bus ride up was a small party with 15 attendents, and fun was had in the safe hands of Dave Hughes from Murphy's bus lines.
Upon arrival in Toronto, we set up shop in the upper level of the El Mocambo concert hall, and waited for the crowd to come... and they did, trickle in. The Lava Lamps started out the night with drummer Dawn Lewis standing center stage and singing an airy and romantic version of 'Will you still love me tomorrow' to warm up the crowd. After the instrument swap-up, Moe took over the mic with her always top performance. Maureen Sullivan is the songwriting machine that puts together really catchy songs, with the appropriate level of melancholy to appeal to the true pop music fan.The high end of the sound system echoed her girly-esqsue voice throughout the open space, and all were entranced by the faster than usual paced pop performance. Guitarist Mike Wismer adds colour to the fundemental indiepop song structure by using effects and timing together to fill jangle guitar to the bass lines of the ever groovey Sookie Mei.
The Fathoms, I believe, surpirsed a lot of people that night. The band that no one has seen, but has heard a lot about were most definately the most attention grabbing of the night. Their CD is really good, alright, but the show was excellent. Since the recording of 'Drugstore Hero', they have gained a second guitarist and a keyboard, to fill in the sonic rock sound of the hard charging rock and roll recording. They played a few album track and previewed some of the new tracks from their undisclosed upcoming release (which will be worth the buy). They have a really original sound, but it sounds familliar, and lead singer/songwriter Conal Smiley has a really nice voice when he sings, and an even better sceamy Frank Black voice. The drummer made me nervous that he would break the drum kit, however, he didn't, for as hard and as fast as he beat the skins, it was a wall of drum sound, the kind that you use your whole upper body to appreciate. Their set was energetic and the band was very nice to us.
The Dead played next, and despite the crowd size actually served it's purpose to a lone mosher, which is absolutely comendable. I think that for as hard as they tried that night, The Dead were more than the soft indie rockers could bare. The band puts on a show, regardless of who it is for, and they did for us that night. Bassist Ken even took his instrument to the eye and suffered some really cool bleeding.
Parky and Darcy are really fast players, they put a lot of sound out between the two of them, dualing guitarist performing intricate riff and trick work. Drummer Matt fills out every millisecond of space with the mastery of his drum kit, carries the band a long with solid and furious playing. All of this tight instrumentation is topped off by Chris Lawn's scratchy vocals and energetic performance.
Lastly was a great performance by the Grand Poo Bah, complete with choreographed dance steps. They funked out a love ballad cover at the start of the set, and raocked their way through Rokkenphunkenrohl. I hadn't seen the band in a while, and I think that seem to have been a little bit harder than funk that night. The band has spend a lot of time this Summer playing the likes of The Salads, Billy Talent and the WarpedTour 2004, all of which are fast paced jams that the Poo Bah seem to have picked up on a little, in their own funky jam... it was just a very energetic performance.
Feedback from Toronto was great. A friend of mine who works at Lacquer Channel Mastering in Toronto has his ear is to the ground for all sorts of upcoming music in the city said that it's nice to see really independent music, in that it was nice to see people playing music for music. And it was just that that night, there was a less interest from the city as we had hoped, but all the musicians made the best of the audience that had, and all played solid sets. Thanks to all that came out that night, and to all those who played, we have nothing but good words for the musicians who play such risky shows.