Concerts

Concert Review: Bag Raiders, August 1st, Kool Haus

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Ricky in Concerts | 1 Comment

Toronto – Ten months after releasing one of my favorite electro pop albums of 2010, Sydney’s Bag Raiders finally made their Toronto debut in front of a semi packed Kool Haus on Monday. The duo, consisting of DJs Chris Stracey and Jack Glass were there to open for UK darling Ellie Goulding. I had waited anxiously for the duo to make their live appearance in our city since listening to their single Castles in the Air, a nintendo meets synthesizer mashup that set off the imaginary dance floor in my head. Their self titled album would spawn a few tracks that have been my rotation since including Sunlight, Snake Charmer and Shooting Stars.

With a less than favorable starting time of 8 pm, the duo took the stage and delivered an energetic thirty minute set that had the crowd dancing by the halfway point. The two shared vocal duties while manning the many electrical devices it required to produced their eighties-video-game-dance-club-on-the-shores-of-a-beach sound. Most of their tracks have a lovely build up to a pulsating chorus, which is a perfect tonic for the pop happy, completely willing to lose it Ellie Goulding crowd. Despite Dan Black’s absence, the track Sunlight was the highlight for me. It’s got a great beat and is just ridiculously catchy, also the music video of the song features a monkey.

Bag Raiders – Sunlight (feat. Dan Black) by modularpeople

It came to me as a surprise that the set closing track Shooting Stars is apparently their most famous song, since I prefer some of the other tracks on the album. There were more than a few hands in the air when the first notes dropped for that tune, which in it’s favor, has probably the biggest build up/pay off moment of any song in their repertoire. I felt however, some of that build up was dampened by the fact that the duo was playing at the cavernous Kool Haus. Some music is just made for a club (or a beach), I think Bag Raiders is one of them.

While playing at 8 pm at the end of a long weekend in a large warehouse before a budding pop starlet isn’t the most ideal situation for a band such as Bag Raiders to make their debut, the duo made the most of it and help feed the crowd’s enthusiasm by providing them with a relentless set of upbeat dance tracks for rapid consumption. More than a few people asked me who the band was afterwards, which is always a great sign. Here’s hoping they return soon with their own headlining tour.

Bag Raiders is opening for Ellie Goulding at these venues.

Tuesday August 2nd || Royal Oak Music Theatre || Royal Oak, MI *
Monday August 8th || Ogden Theatre || Denver, CO *
Thursday August 11th || The Wiltern || Los Angeles, CA *
Saturday August 13th || Anaheim Convention Center || Anaheim, CA

Bag Raiders – Snake Charmer by modularpeople

Out Of The Box Festival: Foxes In Fiction, Human Bodies, July 30, Toronto Underground Cinema

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Paul in Concerts | Leave a comment

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.

06 Ninth Floor View by Foxes in Friction

Out Of The Box Festival: The Hoa Hoa’s, Rival Boys, July 29, Toronto Underground Cinema

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Paul in Concerts | Leave a comment

Toronto – 3D.  It’s all the rage these days, what with 3D TVs and practically every big budget blockbuster being released in 3D.  So it stands to reason that somebody would take a stab at giving the people a 3D live concert experience. OK, fair enough, every concert already is 3D, but not every concert has 3D projections onstage with the bands.  That was what the people behind the Out Of The Box Festival were providing on this night at the Toronto Underground Cinema.  That, and popcorn.   

I arrived at the venue shortly before The Hoa Hoa’s took the stage.  I figured that their psychedelic, shoegazey sound would be a good fit for the 3D treatment, and it was.  If only there was more effort put into the 3D component.  Don’t get me wrong, the extra visual element added something to the experience, but the fact that for most of their set, a screen saying “menu” was up there, along with repetition of the same basic images, I found it to be somewhat lacking.  Perhaps they were allocating certain images to certain bands so as to avoid repetition throughout the night, (I do believe that Rival Boys, who followed The Hoa Hoa’s, had comepletely different stuff on screen during their set) but it still seemed as if somebody just hit play on the DVD and then didn’t really tend to it for the rest of their set.

It was mainly about the music though, and as I said, The Hoa Hoa’s played a great set, previewing some songs from their new EP along with a few oldies.  They also made good use of a keyboard for several songs, something singer/guitarist Lee Brochu stated was a pretty rare occurrence.  I’ve got to say, the keyboard really adds a lot to their live sound.  Hopefully, they’ll make more use of it in the future.  Of course, that may be a bit of a moot point, since this was one of the last shows they’ll be playing around Toronto for awhile while the band takes an extended break.

Vinyl Richie by The Hoa Hoa’s

Review: Hillside Festival, July 22 – 24

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Paul in Hillside | Leave a comment

Etran Finatawa

Guelph – “That’s a pretty good way to start off a folk festival.”  So said Old Man Luedecke after hearing a song by Lowlands, his partners in the “That Lucky Old Sun” workshop on the Lake Stage.  Of course the Hillside Festival hasn’t really been a folk festival for some time now, but it has held on to the general folky, hippie-ish vibe and has continued to book folk performers even as some of the festival’s emphasis has shifted towards hot new indie rock acts. 

The lineup for the festival was generally pretty eclectic, with a focus  on the overall vibe rather than booking a lot of big name acts.  This makes for a good opportunity to discover some brand new acts.  One of the more unique ones I caught was Australia’s Graveyard Train, who augment their country-ish sound with male chorus style group vocals, lyrics about witches, mummies, and monsters and most impressively, a guy playing hammer and chain as a percussion instrument.  A frickin’ hammer and chain!   Amazing. 

Graveyard Train – Dead Folk Dance by FBi Radio

Over the past few years, Hillside has partnered with Pop Montreal, giving them a couple hours time in the schedule to do with as they will.  As usual, the Pop Montreal folks did a good job of showing off some up and comers from the Montreal scene, including Grimes, who impressed with her so called “weird pop.”  Also impressive were fellow Montrealers Pat Jordache, who played right before Grimes on the Island Stage.  The highlight of their set came early on as they were joined onstage by a member of Niger’s Etran Finatawa, his desert blues guitar leads blending effortlessly with their sound.  Everyone onstage seemed to be having a lot of fun jamming together on that one song and I’ve got to admit I was a little diappointed that he didn’t stick around for the whole set.  Now Magazine has a video of the song here. 

Etran Finatawa’s mainstage set on Saturday night was really something to see.  Until fairly recently, I was largely unfamiliar with their style of music, but after seeing them at Hillside, I would consider myself a fan.  They were definitely one of the highlights of the festival.  Another highlight was Lost In The Trees.  Songwriter and composer Ari Picker has crafted a collection of beautiful, lush, epic sounding songs that were expertly executed by his bandmates on a variety of instruments including cello, violin, accordion, and tuba.  They further demonstrated their instrumental prowess in a Sunday afternoon workshop with Braids, meshing their orchestral folk sound with the Montreal band’s art rock.  It was one of those unique Hillside moments that you won’t see anywhere else. 

Etran Finatawa – Daim Walla by DawsonCityMusicFestival

While a lot of fairly big names like Sloan, Kevin Drew, and The Rural Alberta Advantage played this weekend, perhaps the most enthusiastic reaction of the weekend was directed towards an unlikely performer – Fred Penner.  That’s right, the children’s performer was playing before a devoted crowd largely made up of adults and it was kind of the closest thing I saw to a rock star experience all weekend.  “Hi kids,” said Penner as he took the stage, “You got older.”  It was a bit of a weird scene, but in a way it makes sense – kids who grew up watching Penner on TV, going to his concerts and listening to his albums are looking back with nostalgia and kind of reliving their childhoods.  Heck, even those who didn’t grow up watching Penner were enthusiastically singing along.  He had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand and for a brief time a beer tent was somehow transformed into Fred Penner’s Place.

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