Every once in awhile, a show comes along and completely blows your mind by the sheer randomness of it. When I saw bauhaus back in 1998 at what was once known as the Warehouse, a muscle-bound freak started random fistfights with everyone around him (women included), a future boyfriend’s watch was smashed in, and management confiscated the camera I had smuggled in. Last night’s Atlas Sound show had a few medical emergencies, a beyond sold-out crowd, and most memorably, my encounter with Bradford Cox.

The evening started off innocently enough. The Selmanaires, another Atlantan outfit invited out to support and back Cox in his Broadcast leg, opened up the show right at 10:00. Having known nothing about them prior to their set and contemplating skipping it altogether, they impressed me with their Primal-Scream-esque dancey psychedelia beats. The only thing they have to work on now: vocals and choosing other Georgian bands to cover (hey, the B52’s were great but everyone was sort of puzzled as no one could recognize the tune they chose). Also, this is another up and coming band that has an Asian…and Ricky, I believe he’s of Chinese descent. Tommy Chung sings and provides bass guitar, so there’s another one to add to our list. The real draw for me however (and there is absolutely no surprise here), was their Colombian ultra-babe percussionist Mario Schambon.  This guy ripped up those bongos and you could just tell he exuded a genuine joy in being able to percuss onstage, toothily grinning to his bandmates the entire time.

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Toronto – Saturday night. What to do? Well, I was intending on going to a pajama party, but my friend who was going to it failed to invite me, not wanting to be ‘that guy who goes to a party and brings another party’. so off i was, not really having a plan. Luckily, my other friend had won guest tickets for a show at the Horseshoe, by a band called ‘Two Hours Traffic‘. (he won it off Chromewaves, a site that has many giveaways). Being Chinese, I could not realistically turn down a free show.. thusI went, not having known anything about them. All I knew was what Dwayne and Wade had told me, which was ‘blah blah blah Joel Plaskett blah blah blah PEI blah blah blah CBC Radio 3’. Sounds interesting enough. The Maritimes seem to generate good tunes. Maybe thats what happens when theres nothing to do – you make good music. Thats probably why Sweden is so good at it, aside from designing easy to put together furniture, eating meatballs and drinking that drink they drink..theres really nothing to do there.

So who are these guys? Well, Joel Plaskett produced them and they are from the East Coast. That means one thing – good ole guitar rock. I expected a bunch of pastey ass white boys with longish hair and maybe a few plaid shirts. I was correct. They have a album coming out …last year… its called Little Jabs. I guess this band really flew off my radar. With a boring name like ‘Two Hours Traffic’, I can see why. Despite the name, these guys drew a large crowd. Half of which are probably from PEI (and related to each other) and half fans of the CBC. Quite the dichotomy. I actually had my CBC shirt on for the show, which is coincidental and also a bit odd, since I am a big advocate of not wearing band shirts at a show.

The show was quite energetic, the crowd was really into it. Most fans seem to know all the tunes which would indicate that, they too, have heard of the band. A lot of people yelled out ‘East Coast’. I did too. I wanted to yell out ‘Tupac 4 life! nigga what up!’ but that would probably not go over too well. The band played for about 45 minutes. Maybe an hour. Maybe not. I don’t remember. All I can say about Two Hour Traffic is this: it felt like a Canadian rock show, it sounded like a Canadian rock show and the crowd was that of a Canadian rock show. And sometimes, thats all you really need, is a slice of Canadiana. Follow that up with a nice bowl of pho and you got a good night at the Horseshoe.

Here is a link to Chromewaves review of the show, which probably makes more sense, is less offensive and actually contains relevant details about the band. Everyone has their ways, I guess.

Here is a song off their album Little Jabs. It is off the label Bumstead Productions, which is a label Wade may or may not look at this year in his yearlong article series on Canadian labels.