Concerts

SXSW Final Recap

Posted on by Ricky in South By Southwest | Leave a comment

The Temper Trap

Austin – It’s been a week since we’ve all returned from our journey to Austin. With some time to reflect, here are our final thoughts.

Best Show

Gary – Fanfarlo at Galaxy Room, March 18; crowd response AND the general way it was carried were both an experience.

Derek – The Temper Trap

Allison – We Were Promised Jetpacks; basically the entire Showcasing Scotland show on Wednesday

Ricky – Marina and the Diamonds..great energy and good crowd response.

Best Show from a band you have never heard before:

Gary – Local Natives and Temper Trap; Temper Trap destroyed their filler expectation, and I’m an ignorant dumbass so I’ve never heard Local Native before this trip.

Derek – That would be most of the shows I saw. The Temper Trap, Local Natives and The Boxer Rebellion definitely stood out.

Allison – Unicorn Kid

Ricky – Definitely the Temper Trap. I guess they were popular already, the dude can sing.

Worse Show

Gary – Galaxy Room backyard, March 17 – the stage management was horrible – bands were playing 3-4 songs a piece and things were constantly delayed because their sound guy would go missing mid-play.

Derek – Steel Train, that and every metal band that was playing whenever I walked by the stage at 8th and Red River

Allison – Whoever that awful industrial band at the Hype Machine party was on Saturday. mosh pit? come on.

Ricky – Street Sweeper Social Club. Bringing back hard rock + rap combo is not a good idea.

Best SXSW Moment

Gary – When we weaseled our way into the Filter party at cedar street courtyard, skipping a 100 ppl line directly to the front of the house… power of the RICKY on full display.

Derek – Filter Party VIP lounge. Temper Trap blew me away and 8 Jack and cokes later I was good to go.

Allison – Seeing Boxer Rebellion despite being sick, or anytime I got free drinks without waiting in a line

Ricky – Climbing over the fence at the French Legation center to see the XX, and then finding out the place where I climbed over was right behind the main stage, allowing me to scoot myself nicely to the side of the stage.

Worse SXSW Moment

Gary – When Stubb’s AND Mohawk both ran out of wristband admission on the same night after 3 hrs of combined waiting and I walked around with a stranger to unheard-of bands but discovered only teensy pop… designs of the RICKY hidden from us.

Derek – Waiting in line in cold for stupid Perez Hilton party

Allison – The ridiculous cold Saturday

Ricky -Stupid lineup at Perez Hilton Party.

There you have it. SXSW, we love ya and we’ll see you next year!

Concert Review: Thrush Hermit, March 26 & 27, Lee’s Palace

Posted on by Paul in Concerts, Everything | 1 Comment

Toronto – We here at The Panic Manual have made no secret of the fact that we like Joel Plaskett.  The dude has been writing good tunes and playing great shows for awhile now.  But as I’m sure many of you are aware, before he went solo, he was a part of the great East Coast band Thrush Hermit.  I probably remember seeing Thrush Hermit first on the old MuchMusic program Much East. (creative name, that)  Their videos from back in the day were a little bit odd and definitely pretty awesome.  I also remember getting their album Sweet Homewrecker through the old Columbia House music club thing.  Ah nostalgia …

And I suppose in a way nostalgia is what brought me to this show.  I liked this band a lot back in the day and still do, but I never got to see them.  So I was really looking forward to these shows, so much so that I got tickets for both nights (but passed on the Sunday afternoon show … that would be too much Hermit even for me.  If anyone saw it though, let me know how it was)  And Thrush Hermit did not disappoint.  Taking to the stage to the strains of the intro to “Skip The Life” playing on a loop (which gave it a weird Twin Peaks-ish quality) and lit by the warm neon glow of their “Rock & Roll” sign, they immediately kicked into a night of their greatest hits.  They played pretty much every song I would’ve wanted them to, except “I’m Sorry If Your Heart Has No More Room.”  I would have shouted out a request for it, but that would have taken too long and been a bit awkward to shout out, so alas, I didn’t hear it. 

 I also didn’t hear the opening acts on either night, which bummed me out a bit afterwards as I heard that Attack In Black played on Saturday.  Oh well, such is life.  What I did see, however, was some weird jazz band playing at The Tranzac on Friday night before heading to Lee’s.  Their guitar player looked like Matt Groening and had lots of effect pedals.  And on Saturday, I saw Mayor Miller drinking alone at a neighbourhood bar.  You’d think the Mayor would be able to rustle up a few drinking buddies, but whatever. 

Thrush Hermit put on a great show, rocking out like almost no time had passed.  In fact, time seemed to be a theme for the night, as right before the band came on, Colin James’ “I Just Came Back To Say Goodbye” was piped in over the speakers and after the band left the stage, we were treated to Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” to tell us it was time to go.  Also, Rob Benvie and Joel Plaskett got into a brief discussion on time vortexes and such.  And I’m always up for some good time vortex banter, so that was good. 

There wasn’t too much variation between the sets on each night.  In fact, speaking of lack of variation, I suspect that Ian McGettigan has been wearing the same shirt for every show of the tour.  If so, I applaud his decision.  As I said, the hits were pretty much covered.  Highlights included “On The Sneak,” “The Day We Hit The Coast,” “Oh My Soul!”, “Heart Wrenching Man,” ” Hated It,” “French Inhale,” “North Dakota,” Joel Plaskett flashing a light on the crowd during “From The Back Of The Film”  and the highlight of the set on both nights, “Violent Dreams.”  On Friday, they also played a song I totally didn’t recognize, “Take Another Drag.”  Even Benvie seemed a bit surprised as he looked down at the setlist: “That’s one for the diehards.”  Saturday was notable for the appearance onstage on Sloan’s Chris Murphy, who introduced the band for their second encore and joined them onstage for a duet with Benvie on “25 All Right.”  

Oh, and Saturday night was also notable for being loud.  Very loud.  I’m sure it was also loud on Friday night, but on Saturday I was up front and to the right of the stage.  I think I could actually feel my skull shake.  I happened to be passing by Lee’s Palace on Sunday afternoon too, and could hear the bass from outside the venue.  So yeah, loud.  But loud is good.

CMW: 2010 Festival Highlights

Posted on by Mark in Canadian Music Week, Concerts | 1 Comment

Toronto – Well the dust has settled on another Canadian Music Week. I’ve had an opportunity to take a step back and have a good think about the shows I’ve seen, so I’m ready for my recap.

Best show:
It’s a tie between Plants & Animals and the last 20 minutes that I saw of the Handsome Furs set. I’m going to go with the Handsome Furs because it was so intense and energetic.

Best show from a band you have never heard before:
Bahamas. He is a solid guitar player and singer. Of the Jason  Collett/Zeus/Bahams trifecta, it was the aesthetic of the Bahamas songs that I was most drawn too. In terms of musicianship, he seemed like a cut-above his band mates.

Worst show:
The angry music during the middle of the Constantines set at the Indie music awards had me high-tailing it out of the Royal York before they were finished.

Best CMW moment:
The Handsome Furs encore. Because encores are so rare at music festivals like CMW that have strict set times, and because it was so good.

Worst CMW moment:
There are two worst CMW moments. The first would be showing up early to see Joel Plaskett, only to wait in line for the better part of an hour in the cold windy rain. On top of that, they were running behind so the doors opened late.

The second is a vicarious moment. I met a young woman who was so discouraged about the Plants & Animals lineup that she decided to forego that show to make sure she got to see the Handsome Furs. She arrived at the El Mocambo early but accidentally went upstairs instead of downstairs. When she realized her mistake, they wouldn’t let her in downstairs. This was a shared culpability situation, but better handlers at the door could have easily avoided this problem.

Here were Paul’s moments at CMW

Best Show: Parlovr @ Sneaky Dee’s. It was 2 AM. They seemed totally drunk, off the cuff, and a little bit goofy, but still blew me away with their songs and their stage presence (which was actually probably due to the apparent drunkenness) and proved that they were more than just another band of Montreal hipsters.

Best show from a band you have never heard before: A tie between The Atlas Moth And P.O.S.

Worst show: Nothing totally sucked, but Homicide @ The Comfort Zone was a bit of a letdown. Mind you, I only caught like 1 or 2 songs.

Best CMW moment: Separado! That movie just made me feel good.

Worst CMW moment: The mandatory coatcheck at The Phoenix. I’m fine with keeping my coat on, thank you very much.

Concert Review: The Wave Pictures, Maylee Todd, White Suede, March 25, Drake Hotel

Posted on by Ricky in Concerts | 3 Comments

Toronto – On Wednesday night, at Royal Albert Hall in London, England, my favorite band ever, Suede was playing some charity show for cancer or something. It was the first time they had played for seven years or something, and I wasn’t there. Did you know it costs $2500 to fly to England for one night and then come back the next night? Seriously. I know. Too expensive. As I laid there on the floor in a fetal position crying, I realized that I would be watching a band called Suede this week anyway. This didn’t make me feel any better, but that’s the way life goes I guess. The band was actually named White Suede, who were playing a triple bill at the No Shame showcase on Thursday night, also featuring Toronto singer Maylee Todd and British band The Wave Pictures.

White Suede – I didn’t know much about this band going in, so I’ll refer to the PR email for an introduction. According to the email, White Suede “is the latest incarnation of a collaboration between songwriter Daniel Bedard, guitarist and band leader Adrian Traub-Rees and soulful diva extraordinaire Kritty Urinowski”. I don’t know they are, but it so happened that Thursday night was the band’s first performance ever. A band’s first public live performance is always interesting..everything either goes right, or everything falls apart. Luckily for White Suede, it was the former and not the latter. A large 7 piece band, White Suede consisted of drummers, synth player, bass, guitar and three vocalist – two of them females. Joe from Mechanical Forest Sound likened their appearance to that of the Commitments, something I didn’t realize at the time, but is completely true. The fourty minute set consisted of energetic music that is influenced from 70s rock mixed with some soul and Motown vibes. All the songs seemed very radio friendly and had a classic innocent kinda vibe to it. There was synchronized dancing moves between the two female singers and overall, it was fairly entertaining – especially for a first show ever.

Maylee Todd and Pegwee Powe – Next up on the bill was Toronto singer/songwriter Maylee Todd. You may know her as the singer on various Woodhands songs. I would classify her set as a smorgasbord of sounds and genre. A real bass, harp, accordion and various other instruments were used throughout the set, which features elements of pop, jazz, soul, motown and funk. One constant among all the songs is the use of Maylee Todd’s voice – which is powerful, clear and sharp. I really like songs that were more soul/funk oriented and to me, that might be the best use of Maylee Todd’s talents. It seemed like she was dabbling in many different genres in order to experiment or maybe she gets too bored if she consistently does one thing, but to me, her soul/funk stuff is definitely the best. Either way, the set was once again, energetic, sometimes disorganized but all in all very pleasant. The lyrics didn’t really make sense sometimes and the banter was a bit awkward at times, but I still enjoyed the set.

The Wave Pictures – I think the Wave Pictures takes the award for the shortest sound check/setup time ever. I swear, they did it in 10 minutes. It was impressive and made me happy. I guess this is one of the benefits of having a simple drum/guitar/bass setup. It’s a real shame that only 50 or 60 people were in the audience for their set because the Wave Pictures delivered a really honest, catchy dose of folk rock with clever lyrics and observations. Casually talking about the Queen, shopping for vinyl at Rotate this and problems crossing the borders, the band seemed to engage the audience as old friends rather then people who paid to see them, making the show quite intimate. There were definitely some hardcore fans in the audience who seemed to know lyrics to every song and I am sure they are quite happy with the set. The 40 minute set consisted mainly of songs off the recent albums Instant Coffee Baby and If You Leave It Alone. All 3 members of the band shared vocal duties including drummer Jonny Helms, who much to the delight of the crowd, sang Now That You’re Pregnant as the set closer. Good times all around.

All in all, a pleasant night of pleasant music.