Concert Review: Sia, April 28, Phoenix Concert Theatre

Posted on by Brian in Concerts | 2 Comments

Toronto – There is a pretty serious side to Sia Furler. Her first love died in a car accident. She speaks openly in interviews and on her popular Twitter account about all the therapy she’s been through. She’s become an icon in the LGBT community after she came out about dating girls and being bisexual. Her best known tune, “Breathe Me,” is a real heartbreaker, and her first two albums, Healing is Difficult (2000) and Colour the Small One (2004) are deeply introspective.

None of this is really evident in her live show, as Sia is easily the cutest, most adorable stage presence I’ve ever seen. The Australian singer popped up onstage at the Phoenix on April 28 with what she called a “light up penis” on her head and proceeded to bounce through an hour and a half set heavy with tunes from her more recent and upbeat albums Some People Have Real Problems from 2008 and We Are Born, set to be released next month.

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Concert Review: Stars, May 5th, Mod Club

Posted on by Brent in Concerts | 6 Comments

Toronto – Security Lady: “Stars are on at 10:30pm”. It’s 9:30. Alright, we have an hour so let’s pop over to Il Gatto Nero for a quick one before going in. We drink up and head back over and make it in for 10:15 and Stars are already on. Of course. The sold out Mod Club was steamy with hundreds of us packed in like sardines. Even though we were standing at the very back by the soundboard for the first half of the show the heat still made you uncomfortable so I could only imagine what those poor poor bastards twenty feet in front of us were feeling. Man, I guess it’s not 1998 anymore and I’m a huge wuss.

The purpose of this tour is for Stars to showcase their new album The Five Ghosts by playing it from beginning to end (Release date is June 22). Going to a show knowing in advance that the band will be playing all new material may make the biggest fans pass, stay at home and watch the playoffs but Stars fans were out in full force. This only leaves me to conclude that Stars fans hate hockey. The day of the show I checked craigslist to see what people were asking for tickets just for the hell of it. Some guy was asking for $125 a ticket and even had the gall to say “no lowballers”. Douchebags continue to walk amongst us.

All in all, the new album sounded pretty decent with lots of synths and strong vocals shared between Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan. Torquil encouraged the crowd to buy the vinyl and then rip it on to their computers even though I didn’t see a merch table anywhere. Slightly ironic considering The Five Ghosts sounds much more electronic than their prior albums as well as the Mod Club having some insanely complicated-looking digital soundboard. In the middle of their first set Torquil put his white jacket on which I’m pretty sure he wore at Queen Elizabeth Hall last time I saw them. This puzzled me considering the heat. Amy was much more appropriately dressed wearing a small sparkly blue dress with high heels. Pretty hot when you add an electric guitar to the mix.

After they completed the first part of their set they took a ten-minute break. I went outside to get some fresh air and while walking out Jian Ghomeshi was walking in with a couple buddies. I only overheard him say “yeah, I’ve just been really busy lately”. In all fairness, he does work his tail off and he’s gaining more respect from me lately but mostly because of the musical guests he’s been interviewing (The Weakerthans, Los Campesinos!, MGMT, Broken Social Scene ,The National, Neko Case, Sonic Youth, etc.). I guess he doesn’t really book the guests though so maybe he needs to work harder to gain my respect. Also, he stole a cab from me once on Queen Street a couple years ago. True story. Jian must have only caught the second set though because of him being so super busy. Stars continued with my personal favourite song Your Ex-lover is Dead and played several other favourites like Elevator Love Letter and Ageless Beauty while throwing white flower petals in to the crowd. We were able to watch the rest of the show from the balcony which was less stuffy, crowded and closer to a bar and bathroom. Bonus. They played a one-song encore.

Setlist was as follows (courtesy of Wade):

First set:

“Dead Hearts”
“Wasted Daylight”
“I Died So I Could Haunt You”
“Fixed”
“We Don’t Want Your Body”
“He Dreams He’s Awake”
“Never Been Good with Change”
“The Passenger”
“The Last Song Ever Written”
“How Much More”
“Winter Bones”

Second Set:

Your Ex Lover Is Dead
Take Me to The Riot
Elevator Love Letter
Heart
Ageless Beauty
One More Night
Calendar Girl

HotDocs review: Dr. Nakamats [2010, Kaspar Astrop Schroder]

Posted on by Gary in Everything, Hot Docs, Reviews | Leave a comment

Toronto – Being a celebrity can be hard. Being a self-promoting celebrity is even harder. The hardest thing is diamond.

I feel like I need a bit of absurdity to go with the film so I can swallow the protagonist’s claims. Yoshiro Nakamatsu says he holds 3,300+ Japanese patents, all of which he did out of love not money but none of which should be sold at half price. His other eccentricities include smelling cameras for their “goodness”, deriving creativity from diving and depriving himself of oxygen, sleeping 4 hours a night and only drinking for fluid the 55 element-enriched “brain drink” he invented, believing that he’ll live to 144 because it’s a multiple of 6, orchestrating his 3 children to give him a surprise present at 12am, AND keeping his mother’s body in a special contraption on the ceiling of his home so he can telepathically communicate to her for ideas. Ok, so maybe I don’t have to believe him. But when the 81 years old standing in front of you says that he teaches at the University of Tokyo, preaches a 3-step program of creativity with an accompanying 5-tier pagoda of success, you really wonder who’s trying to convince who. What I think we have is a very eccentric man whose ego is in need of 24-7 pampering, and have an endless stockpile of rehearsed lines for each situation. That, at least, is admirable.

Because Dr. Nakamats is so very out of the ordinary, the film didn’t use a whole lot of other visual elements save the sign-post font graphics. I don’t feel like that I have been informed a great lot, either – unless this is meant to be a mockery to the man – in which case it baffles the mind why Dr. Nakamats himself showed up at the screening. And I didn’t like it when the audience skips around this obvious contradiction but was confronted with cutesy one liner responses. Overall I was a little disappointed, not the least because Isabel Bader theater was uncharacteristically 30 minutes late.

HotDocs review: The Mirror [2010, David Christensen]

Posted on by Gary in Everything, Hot Docs, Reviews | Leave a comment

Toronto – “Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the ugliest of them all?” Of the seven deadly sins, only sloth, lust and gluttony need not apply to a small town mayor who wants to build a mirror to reflect sunshine into his town square. So I’d say this magic mirror has shown that he’s the ugliest of them all.

Not that the railwayman (train engineer) is a bad person. The events of this film just doens’t reflect very well on him (OK no more puns, I promise). The small town of Viganella doesn’t have much tourism, it is dwindling in size, and there isn’t much that stirs the residents. That may have been the original reason to mount such a publicity stunt. As Christensen noticed in the Q&A however, the valley tends to harbour mayors with vanity projects. What is one to do after coming up with an idea like this? Well, you get an architect, not an engineer. One that doesn’t understand the basic principles of Newtonian mechanics, nor commonsense, is preferable. Otherwise you won’t have a very engaging documentary. And you need someone to lay the ground works before marching in the mirror. What about some German Buddhists? Brilliant. They endure hardships and require no more than prayer and mental peace. And for publicity? How about everyone? Let’s gather delegates from Spain, Mexico, Japan, local and international (Al Jazzeera, would you believe it?) reporters. We’ll mobilize the entire town to put on a parade 5 minutes before the Sunday mass finishes.

The scene at the valley really isn’t as bizarre as I have described. In fact, the film highlights the cooperation between valley neighbours Viganella, Bordo (the Tibetan Buddhist settlement), and Cheggio (an abandoned ghost town with few residents). The project, and not its culmination in a press frenzy, actually rallied the residents. Even though each has their own opinion on the mirror, a better sense of community is established as a result of the exercise. The Mirror is an evenhanded portrait of the valley, and quietly contemplative at times. Christensen did put a bit more social emphasis on the clash between Germans and Italians. But I think that’s a fair decision given that the tension was inherent, and not in the presentation style of the film. As to the mirror itself, it broke once during mounting, 2nd time at the inauguration, and became something of a non-issue after the fanfare. It wasn’t an architectural wonder anyways – just a very mundane flat steel construction that resembles a reflective billboard. It was quite surprising, though, that all of the soundtrack in the film was from residents of the valley. Accordion, electric and acoustic guitars, indian and steel drums. They and Susan Boyle remind you the talents that are hiding out there waiting for an opportunity. The mayor’s next project is: “building a cafe beneath the mirror”. Sounds like more self-serving public service. The mirror costed EU$100,000, or $500 for each of the 200 residents. Expect more outlandish spending. I wonder what the construction crew will forget to account this time; maybe how many cows they will need to fly-in to make whipped cream.