NXNE Thursday 18th
June 30th, 2010 by Nathaniel
Glorious day 2 in the festival but day one for us took place in the hipster netherworld of West Queen West where we could hop between several NXNE venues quickly and repeatedly. It all began at 9 pm.
Mountains & The Trees @ Gladstone Hotel Ballroom
As I got there it was barely 9 pm and the Gladstone ballroom was practically empty despite the show and first band having started at 8 pm. The thin crowd was mostly media by the looks of the plentiful amount of expensive professional DSLR cameras in sight. The Mountains & The Trees, a friendly looking guy/girl duo was introduced refreshingly in an honestly enthusiastic way by a CBC Radio 2 personality. Fronted by Jon Janes, fittingly and perhaps purposely dressed in a classic logo CBC sweater, on acoustic guitar and Jillian Freeman on a rotating everything else, The Mountains are a likable folk band from the Maritimes that exude earnest rustic charm. Their music is light and sprightly, simple and sparing, consisting of personal story/narratives that have a small town nostalgia mixed with a yearning for bigger and greater things. They’re at their strongest with their more energetic songs and when they sing duet. Janes has an easy and welcoming style which he paired with humorous soft spoken but interesting banter. On another song named “Carry On” he prefaces it with the fact that everywhere they played it in Europe, people mentioned how Canadian it was…joking that it most likely was due to the fact that it fondly recalls snow mitts, trees, and the outdoors. Freeman is an able accompanist switching easily from xylophone to harmonium, bells, and various percussion instruments while also doing backup vocals. The band wrapped up their set with Janes doing a song, “Letters to a friend”, a classic folk parable, solo in an even more intimate form in front of the stage amongst the now slightly bigger crowd. With its steady beats and dreamy storytelling vibe, The Mountains & The Trees is a band I would imagine would be the perfect soundtrack to be listening on a sunny long distance car trip across the Canadian landscape.
Women @ The Great Hall
10 pm found me a couple of blocks east in the supposedly newly renovated but apparently unchanged venue of The Great Hall for the Calgary band Women. They played to a third capacity crowd beginning their set with a song steeped in heavy distortion with a sustained whine in time to epileptic neon blue lights flashing, which was entirely too jarring a transition for me from the folk pop of the last band. The band themselves didn’t seem to really hit their pace themselves until the third song as well. Musically experimental, the band is a four piece with multiple vocals interweaving cacophony, drone, and tight instrumentation to produce a visceral and trance inducing screeching rock that is intense and driving in momentum. The appreciative crowd grew quickly to fill about half the venue as the band ripped through their set. I left early however to make it back for at The Gladstone.
Olenka and The Autumn Lovers @ Gladstone Hotel Ballroom
10:45ish I was back at the Gladstone with folk music to catch the end of Olenka and The Autumn Lovers set. O&AL is a sprawling band of 7 members, 3 women and 4 guys, but definitely girl fronted and led with the guys composing the rhythm section. The band features a really diverse collection of instrumentation from trumpet, violin, sax, harmonica, and cello to the more typical guitar and percussion. The ballroom at this point is now about half full and the crowd is enthusiastic. O&AL’s music is more country at some points than The Mountaintops & The Trees and at others much more rock with very tight vocal harmonies which are definitely one of the band’s strength. One of their last songs was referred to as “another communist song” and featured soft harmonies with vaguely Asian tinged melody and timing that exemplifies the mix of genres and styles that the band easily flows through. At their best the band is full, powerful, superficially rough but extremely tight and shine during the louder, quick, and energetic songs that allow them to truly rock out.
Rock Plaza Central @ Gladstone Hotel Ballroom
By 11:15ish the ballroom is much fuller with a rowdy crowd anxious for the critically acclaimed home town band, Rock Plaza Central to begin continuing the folk to rock progression at the Gladstone. Their first song is, as expected, dramatic and chaotic like a storm gathering with militant thunder, as the deep resonant percussion drives it forward impressively but unfortunately drowns out the low vocals that need adjusting. RPC’s songs are overwhelming and enveloping with grand orchestral movements and sometimes frantic energy. By the second song, ”How Shall I To Heaven Aspire?”, the vocal levels have been fixed which makes for a much more satisfying experience. The crowd of obvious hard core fans often sing along loudly when the band reaches appropriately worded chorus like “I wanna be a shining example” and both the atmosphere and songs are joyous with the crowd starting to dance. All in all the vibe at the Gladstone was familial and warm. Its evident that this folk-rock band have the energy to be able to perhaps one day pull off an arena sized venue.
Little Girls @ The Drake Underground
Way past midnight, I was at The Drake Underground to hear the end of Toronto punk band Little Girls‘ set. Their songs all had a high energy endless and insistent forward momentum that had the dense crowd swaying with a mosh pit which reached all the way to the front. The band ended their set with destruction as the lead singer tossing his synth onto the ground while flailing around and the crowd going wild.
Glass Candy @ Wrongbar
By 1 am I had made my way west under the CN railway bridge into Parkdale to get to Glass Candy‘s 1 am set at Wrongbar. The place was fairly packed and smoky with an evident media presence. After some audio difficulties, the vocals and producer girl/guy duo Idano and Johnny Jewel started their set with a low airplane liftoff sound that flowed into atmospheric synth and deep base beats. Idano swayed and danced before purring and singing in a nasal and sharp voice “This is yellow, this is yellow, this is yellow” repeatedly as she launched into “Digital Versicolor”. Both Idano and Johhny Jewel have a cool confidence and their music oozes slow heavy electro disco funk pierced periodically by Idano’s reverberated screams in punk sized 3 minute songs. They had the crowd right bobbing right away and by song two, everyone was full out dancing and partying. Glass Candy knows how to rev up a crowd and Idano projects a stage presence that is half diva and half rap emcee.
