Toronto – Jennifer Castle, Braids and Chad VanGaalen were the headliners of a decidedly Canadian night at the Great Hall, a venue that needs to be home to more shows. After an afternoon of unnecessary drinking at Trinity Bellwoods park, I was totally ready to park my butt in the comfy seats of the Great Hall and catch three of the hotter Canadian acts at the moment (all of which are signed to Flemish Eye).
Jennifer Castle
Girl and guitar, strong soulful songs penned with the utmost intimacy and delivered in such an earnest way it makes me want to start a diary. All that sounds great on paper but after about twenty showcases, Jennifer Castle’s type of singer songwriter music went in and out of my memory quicker than my bosses criticisms of me at work. Having revisited her recordings these past few days I can guarantee that her seemingly less than memorable show was just a victim of circumstance. Her music is good and if she played a solo show in the future I wouldn’t hesitate to check it out.
Jennifer Castle – Powers by GreaterGoodsCo.
Braids
If singing and hitting notes were equivalent to the world of professional killing, then the girls of Braids would be stone cold assassins who would never miss a shot. The buzz surrounding the group had already been sky high for the group but with some stellar performances and a group of over excited twitterers desperate to announce how much better a time they were having then you tweeting about them, the sky high buzz became a general nxne phenomena and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing the Calgary band’s name.
This brings us back to the Great Hall. Sold out to capacity and sans air conditioning, the sweltering heat inside this venue was in perfect alignment with the group’s current popularity. Taking the stage shortly after eleven, the band delivered to some extent on the preceding hype. Make no mistakes, the girls in this band can sing. Church like in precision, the group did a valiant job in transforming their album Native Speaker into a live environment. Another band that seemed perfectly comfortable behind the confines of their own equipment, Braids seems to highlight one of the problems I find behind the current batch of Canadian indie music. Most bands are great musicians but they are mostly all too nice on stage and as a result deliver a fairly unexciting live stage show. You can always have a pleasant time at the show and afterwards you’ll say to your friends, oh they sounded pretty good but you’ll never have a transcendent life altering time. This is one of the reasons why people love Rich Aucoin and F**ked Up shows. In a world where the excitement they generate should be the norm, they are the exceptions.
Having made that rant, it should be noted that singer Raphaelle Standell-Preston confessed to having food poisoning earlier that day so perhaps it was a good thing she didn’t jump around. Despite the band’s stand still nature, the Calgary group’s swirling indie pop sound become an absolute gem with Raphaelle’s voice at the helm and no amount of poisonous food can stop her and Braids from claiming a spot as one of NXNE’s highlights this year.
Couldn’t really remember Chad Van Gaalen’s show. There was a lot of guitars and people seemed to alternate between happiness and anger.
