2016 will forever be known as the summer of Pan Am Games. This is probably what the organizers of Pan Am games would like you to think. I would provide you more information, but I can’t link to them. Either way, one of the beneficiaries of Pan Am games is music. For some reason, there is a festival celebrating arts and music and stuff and it’s called Panamania. *shrug*
There are some great lineups playing at Nathan Phillips Square the next six weeks. Sunday’s showcase featured two local acts who have found a nice niche in the world of music.
In the spirit of the Pan Am games, I will be writing these reviews in a medals format.
Badbadnotgood
Gold Medal: Getting a large group of people to jump to your music when you are playing jazzy instrumentals is a huge feat. BBNG does this every time and they are only getting better as a band. CS60 and Kaledioscope had people losing their shit and probably gained them a few new fans. Playing to a homecrowd advantage, the band also brought out a sax and a trumpet player which created a much fuller sound.
Silver Medal: If BBNG don’t pan out as a band, I feel like drummer Alexander Sowinski will have a strong career as a MC. Perhaps feeling that the crowd at NPS was not of their usual variety, Alex took it upon himself to direct the crowd throughout the set. I think it definitely helped the band maintain a good relationship with the group through out the show. The music did the rest.
Bronze Medal: Where was Ghostface!
DFA1979
Gold Medal: Sebastien Grainger literally could not believe they were playing a home town show at Nathan Philips Square and subsequently took us down memory lanes, providing stories accompanying each song. Kinda like what Bono did with U2 last Monday, minus the 50 million dollar projection screen. Hometown shows somehow all feel more special when the band mentions that their parents were in the crowd. It’s almost like they really have to try or something.
Silver Medal: The crazy crowd on hand for DFA 1979 was pretty fun for a show at city hall. Crowd surfers everywhere, random passerby’s being amused at this scratchy throat rock duo and just a general sense of fun stemming from the aggressive sounds coming from the music made for a pretty good time.
Bronze Medal: Romantic Rights, ten years later, still gives me chills when it starts. It would have been a perfect night if the fireworks started immediately after the song ended or during that song, but alas, it was not the case.
Fireworks
The fireworks were pretty spectacular, there was some that flew in from the left, some that few in from the right. Some just straight up! There were multi colored which is nice as well. It was synced to some Serena Ryder song, which we will probably all get annoyed with. Remember that Nikky Yanosky song from the Olympics? Yeah me neither.
Still, you can’t go wrong with fireworks, unless you are a NFL football player, so in summary a good way to end off a Sunday night.