Toronto – I will be the first to admit that I’m a bit of a rockist at times. Sure, I enjoy a good electro/dance tune as much as the next guy (and I saw quite a bit of electronic stuff at this past weekend’s Lollapalooza), but I’m less likely to go out and see that stuff live. I had heard good things about DVAS however, and wanted to check them out. So even though it was a Friday the 13th, I figured I’d try my luck and see what they were all about. I was impressed.
Playing a brand of music heavily influenced by the ’80s and full of lots of hot synth action, they were a little reminiscent of Chromeo, but definitely had their own thing going on. Jered Stuffco is an engaging frontman with a strong voice that almost veered into falsetto territory on occasion. I found that he referred to the crowd as “y’all” a few too many times, but that can be forgiven when you introduce songs with lines such as “This song is about sex addiction!” Lo and behold, the song was about sex addiction. And it was an awesome song. DVAS played more than a few awesome songs, my favourites being “Questions” and “Watching You.”
Up next were New York’s Designer Drugs. Appropriately enough, some guy in the crowd approached me before their set and tried to sell me drugs – probably not designer ones though. “Yo bro, you lookin’ for anything?” “Um .. no. Please go away now.” Back to the music: Designer Drugs spun a great set of tunes that had the whole room going crazy. At times, it almost felt like I was partying with the cast of Jersey Shore – there was a lot of fist pumping going on. I’m not sure how many people in the audience caught the sample of Refused’s “New Noise” that they slipped in there, but I certainly did and it was appreciated, as was their use of Hot Butter’s “Popcorn” later in the set. All in all, a good night of music.