Toronto – In these hard economic times, who appreciates a free show more then young 20 something year old indie hipsters who choose work in record stores, coffee shops and vintage clothing outlets instead of getting real jobs? Nobody. This year sees a plethora of North By Northeast acts playing at Yonge Dundas Square for free. The only risk is that you might get a tan from the massive amount of electronic billboards in the area. Regardless, if you are the penny pinching type, the follow acts should keep you satisfied for the weekend. Here are some people who are playing:

Thursday June 18

Spiral Beach – 6 Pm – Cutesy young band is probably playing Yonge-Dundas because they are still too young to enter a bar. Don’t let their age fool you though, their take on cutesy indie pop is quite good and you will be impressed if you check them out. I say, go to Chipotle, grab a burrito and then go listen to these kids.

http://www.myspace.com/spiralbeach

Melissa Au Der Maur – 8 Pm – Former bassist for Smashing Pumpkins and Hole is fronting her own band. The myspace page has a lot of black and red, which makes me think she’s turned goth. The myspace song doesn’t reveal much so it may be interesting. Sadly, the teeny boppers coming out of Forever 21 will probably have never heard of SP or Hole, and only knows Billy Corgan as the guy who dated Tila Tequila for about two weeks.

http://www.myspace.com/aufdermaur

Black Lips – 10 PM

These Atlanta garage rockers are one of the main headliners for NXNE and are known for having ridiculously insane rock shows. It’ll be interesting to see if they will tone down the show since it’s in such a large public space and their might be little kids and grand ma mas in the audience. They recently released The Drop I Hold EP, which features the single ‘The Drop I Hold’ guest starring Wu-Tang Clan’s The GZA. Guess what? GZA is in NXNE. Hmmm.

http://www.myspace.com/theblacklips