Toronto – On the second night of CMF, I found myself back at Rancho Relaxo, where things were running a bit late. Icelandic electro band Bloodgroup didn’t even take the stage until 11:10 and even at that they still had to take a few minutes to plug in their gear and get set up. Needless to say, I was getting a bit impatient. It probably didn’t help that I really wasn’t digging the tunes being played by the between band DJ either. But when they finally got things underway a few minutes later, I thought to myself that it was worth the wait.
Bloodgroup is actually a fairly apropos name for this band. While some electronic music can seem a bit lifeless when performed live, this band was full of energy and played a bunch of energetic electro tunes that could certainly get your blood pumping. Sonically, they had a bit of an 80s vibe, featuring some vintage synthesizers, a drum pad and two keytars along with an array of various other electronic doodads. Let me just pause here to say that I absolutely love the keytar – it’s a keyboard that kind of looks like a guitar, what’s not to love? The lead keytarist (is that a word?) also had a pretty impressive mullet going on. In closing, I will give the final word to one of their vocalists. “Come and say hi after the show. Give us high fives, get your boob signed, whatever. I don’t know if you’re into that in Toronto … it’s big in eastern Europe.” As far as I know, there were no boobs signed at Rancho Relaxo that night.