Concerts

Concert Review: The Sadies, July 1st, Harborfront Centre (Sirius Stage)

Posted on July 2, 2010 by sarahw in Concerts | Leave a comment

Toronto – Oh Canada how I love thee. I also love free concerts and world cuisine. The Harbourfront Centre combined music, food, tall ships and Canada day into one fun-filled day. What more could one ask for? Well, fireworks for one, but I digress.

The Sadies are a mainstay on the Toronto music scene, they have been around for over 10 years now and have collaborated with fellow Canucks such as Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo, Neko Case and the list goes on.

First let me get something off my chest. When I hear people say I like all kinds of music except country and classical, as a response to “what kind of tunes are you into?” it upsets me. I say, HORSE FEATHERS! You cannot exclude entire musical genres when the very music you “love” has been influenced by so many genres that you are basically saying, “I’m a sufficiently large ignoramus”. Generally, these are also the people who only listen to radio top 40, for shame.

Anywho, I digress again! This band, made up of the Good brothers (on guitars and vocals), an upright bass player and a drummer crosses many genres of music to arrive at a very original sound. If I were going to venture an educated yet subjective (slightly inaccurate) guess at what these genres are, I would say country, surfer rock, blues and folk. Dallas Good’s voice sounds like Johnny Cash at some points and Travis Good equally shreds a blues guitar as he does the violin. The drummer is also excellent and a lot of the percussion in their songs has a very Beach Boys, surfer rock vibe, interesting when combined with that country twang. And of course an upright bass is always a nice addition as the immense size of the thing always makes me feel sorry for the kid who signed up for this instrument and then had to lug it to and from band practice.

While Dallas Good has an amazing voice and is a master on guitar, I doubt this dude would exhibit excitement if he won the lottery, woke up with Megan Fox in his bed and found Eric Clapton’s guitar on his doorstep all in the same day. He is the definition of cool. Where he lacks in enthusiasm he makes up for in overwhelming family musical talent, he brought his Mom up on stage to do backup vocals for one of his songs (who by the way is pretty foxy for a Mom). He then brought his Dad (who is part of the country group The Good Brothers) and cousin (a violinist) on stage to help out with a few songs. Having the Good family up on stage was an excellent addition and made for a very nice Canada day fam-jam.

Overall The Sadies are a very talented band and are really able to bend all of those country music stereotypes by incorporating other “cooler” sounds into their songs. Well done Good family, well done.

4 stars

The Sadies – Another Year Again by wereofftherails

TO Jazz Review: The Roots, June 29, Toronto Star Stage

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Mark in Concerts, Toronto Jazz Festival | 6 Comments

Toronto – If I had to sum up the show The Roots put on last Tuesday at Nathan Phillips Square in one word, it would be “Wow!”. If I had two words at my disposal, it would be “Holy Crap!” The band brought an energy that I haven’t seen in quite some time to an audience that was feeling every ounce of it, and sending it right back at them. No matter how you cut it, The Roots, The Roots, The Roots were on fire.

After recently releasing their latest album How I Got Over, you’d think the band would be playing a healthy dose of new material. It was refreshing to see that they were more interested in putting together a kickass live show. The influences of the night came from all over the map. From “Sweet Child of Mine” to “Jungle Boogie”. From a tribute to Fela Kuti (Nigerian Afrobeat), to some sweet Curtis Mayfield funk. The band demonstrated great versatility and managed the transitions oh so smoothly while keeping the energy pegged at 11 for the nearly two hour set.

No matter how you cut it, The Roots, The Roots, The Roots were on fire.

The Roots fuses intellectual lyrics and hip hop with elements of jazz and funk. The band was tight as they wove their way through their set with confidence and dare I say bravado. The live wires of the night were easily guitarist Kirk Douglas, a.k.a. “The String Assassin” and sousaphonist Damon Bryson, a.k.a. “Tuba Gooding Jr.”  They got down from the stage several times to get down and jump up with the crowd. The sousaphone was amazing. Seeing Damon play awoke a deep-seated longing within me that I didn’t even know existed: I want to be a sousaphone player in a hip hop band. I never knew such a thing was possible.

I’ve never given a show a 5 star review before. I was thinking about that in the tent. A great live show consists of a few key elements: the energy the musicians bring to the table, their talents and abilities, and the amount of love that the crowd is sending back to them. As I rocked out in the tent, it occurred to me that The Roots had all of that in spades. Live music just doesn’t get better than this.

TO Jazz Review: Taj Mahal, June 27, Toronto Star Stage

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Mark in Concerts, Toronto Jazz Festival | Leave a comment

Toronto – Taj Mahal brought his brand of traditional blues to Nathan Phillips Square last Sunday. Most of the city was busy processing the aftershock of all that G20 smashy smashy. It seems that after basking in the unfavourable global limelight, most Torontonians have in turn looked back out at the world and the picture out yonder ain’t much rosier. Things seem to be a big ol’ global mess. We’re leaking thousands of tons of oil into the Gulf every hour, and the global financial system is a lot less resilient or stable then our economist friends would have us think.

It’s easy to look at all of this and feel hopeless. Despairing at the fact that life unfolds in unplanned, unforeseen, and uncontrollable ways is what the blues are all about. To the crowd on Sunday night, it made all the sense in the world to let their sorrows air out with Taj.

The music was straight-up blues, no chaser. Taj alternated between electric and acoustic guitars, and occasionally some work on piano. I’m not sure if it was the after effects of the Herbie Hancock show from the previous night, but I just couldn’t get into the music. The blues at its best contains an x-factor that can be hard to reproduce and impossible to fake. It typically involves the musician taking an inner journey to some uncomfortable and personal places. That’s not easy to do on demand. I didn’t feel that the x-factor was present for this show, but that in itself seemed to make sense after the surrealism of the weekend.

Concert Review: Plants and Animals, June 24, Opera House

Posted on June 30, 2010 by sarahw in Concerts | 1 Comment

Toronto – Lately I’ve been on a serious Canadian music kick, read: enjoying many bands with nature-themed names (you have no idea how much this amuses me).

Plants and Animals’ freshman effort, Parc Avenue has been on my iPod for about a year, but not on very high rotation. To be honest they never really wowed me. My roommate is a huge fan and bought us tickets to their show at the Opera House last week.

I was pleasantly surprised with this band made up of only 3 members. Plants and Animals can be described as modernized classic rock (a mix of The Kinks and Coldplay is what first comes to mind). These guys have a pretty decent stage presence, they really rock out up there. You can tell P & A have been touring a while when the lead singer/lead guitarist and the bassist start to sync up their “moves” on stage, I found these rock star moves pretty amusing.

About half way through their set P & A brought out a guest saxophonist, apparently he was one of their high school friends (the name of the song escapes me and after The Acorn debacle, I won’t try to guess it). The sax was a great addition to the song and the guy really nailed his solo (sporting a neon green shirt, wayfarers and a matching neon headband) while hamming it up for his 5 minutes of fame.

Later on in the show they announced another guest, which turned out to be fellow Canadian Basia Bulat. She didn’t really do much per se, except augment a few songs with her Autoharp, maraca’s and some other random percussion tools. Regardless of her contribution, it’s cool when bands bring out surprise guests and it definitely adds another layer to the performance.

I have to admit P & A have moved to a more frequent rotation on my iPod and I am going to take a serious listen to their latest album La La Land.

Plants and animals – Tom Cruz by DerAndere

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