Toronto – As I had written earlier, Portland duo Glass Candy was one of my most highly anticipated acts from NXNE. I had said that they were great for late night time listening and luckily for me, the great organizers at NXNE did book them late at night. Now, I have no idea what bands are popular these days, so in my deluded mine, I figure I should probably get to the Wrongbar one hour earlier so that I could get in.
Much to my surprise, the Wrongbar was mostly empty when we arrived. Since I was in Parkdale, I decided that the only drink acceptable was PBR and so I purchased a tallboy of PBR at not so PBR prices.
The band that was on at 12:00 am was a band from Toronto for called Foxfire. They are a dancey band with some pretty good funk grooves and a hell of a singer. Her name is either Anna or Hannah, the myspace page does not specify. At first, I was kind of meh, as this was my fifth band of the night and I was pretty tired. As the set progress, the band started to get tighter and the songs flowed easily. It was good funky music and a good warm up for the next band. I especially liked the last number, which could easily be mistaken for some Fred Falke remix, as it was heavy on 80sh synth. I look forward to seeing this band again whenever they play town.
Shortly after one, Glass Candy took to the stage. The duo consisted of female singer Ida No and electro guy Johnny Jewel. They didn’t take any time getting going, as they quickly launched into songs off their album Deep Gem. It took me a bit to get into their live act, as Ida’s vocals came out a lot quicker then expected, but like all electronic acts live, the beats were a little faster, the songs a bit longer and they kind of just flowed into each other. That’s one of the great things about electronic music, with so much control over the sounds, every song gets the epic treatment – good beats stretch out longer, big choruses are more potent and quiet parts are more dramatic. Songs like Animal Imagination, Feeling without Touching and Candy Castle elicited a great response from the crowd who was clearly ready to party but it was Geto Boys, the song that samples Geto Boys that drew the best response. The show was good, and the 40 minutes that spanned the show came quickly. I always thought that the last act of the night at NXNE should get special billing and play a bit later, but I guess then bands would fight for that.
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