Toronto – It somehow seemed fitting that the second night of the Out Of The Box Festival at the Toronto Underground Cinema would feature another night of 3D projections. After all, it’s in a movie theatre, 3D is a trick often used by filmmakers for sequels – Jaws and Jackass come to mind – and this was essentially a sequel. And while the music was just as good, I found the 3D element worked a little better on the second night. That’s rare in a sequel.
Up first was Foxes In Fiction, Warren Hildebrand’s one man electro/shoegazey indie pop project. Panic Manual has written about Hildebrand before, creating a minor contoversy amongst some Foxes In Fiction fans after a review of a 2010 live show. That show was nearly a year ago and he’s played a whole lot of shows since then, so it’s probably fair to say that he’s a fairly seasoned performer at this point. He’s not the most chatty onstage however, preferring to let the music speak for itself. In that sense, it probably helped a bit that he was accompanied by the onstage projections, even if they were more or less the same images I had seen the previous night.
By the time Human Bodies took the stage, there was definitely something different onscreen – the 2006 3D remake of Night Of The Living Dead, perhaps chosen in honour of the band’s moniker. This led to my favourite 3D moment of the night, a scene in the film where a stoner character thrusts a spliff at the screen in a manner strongly reminiscent of the old SCTV Dr. Tongue skits. “Would you like some more … pancakes?” Forget Avatar, this is what 3D should really be about – cheesy, campy crap. But I digress. back to the music.
Human Bodies seemed pretty stoked to be playing there – “Playing in a cinema is rad!” This is true, it is kind of rad. Especially when you’e playing in front of a zombie flick. Human Bodies were kind of rad too. They had all the typical signifiers of a Canadian indie band – lots of members, the occasional use of horns, synthesizers, and frequent instrument switching – with a little bit of a harder punk-ish edge to the guitars at times. Not having heard of them before, they were a pretty good discovery for the night. I look forward to checking them out again sometime when I’m not wearing goofy 3D glasses.