If the word on the street is true then the somewhat hefty $60 for Hillside Inside will finally be worth it. A second-hand source has indicated that Stars will be the headliners for this year's second annual Hillside festival to be held inside, in the winter. This seems entirely plausible considering Stars history with the regular Hillside Festival, and Torq's apparent affection for it (having participated as a member of his side project Memphis and a member of Broken Social Scene this past summer as well). Expect an announcement sometime after Stars' string of Toronto dates Dec 11-13.
Hopefully my volunteer application goes through or else I'll have to cough up the dough and be a paying supporter again this year since Stars in Guelph is something I don't want to miss!
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Stars Inside
Friday, November 14, 2008
Good-bye-Spy
Ruby Coast took the stage first as it was the hometown heroes' special night. They played their jangly indie rock to a fairly thick and boisterous crowd. Youthfulness showed, not in an excessively energetic way, nor in a completely inept technical manner but it was present. On a few tracks I thought I could close my eyes and just as easily it could be Tokyo Police Club on stage banging out a new tune. A couple highlights were More than Television, and I Live with Monsters though I feel like they've only ever written 8 songs and all of them were played last night. Besides the d-bag that kept hopping on stage to totally obscure most of the band with his pudgy face it was a solid show. (7)
In their final show (at least for awhile they say) Spymachine 16 didn't change things too much from their regular shows. The six-piece sung ensemble over the prominent keys, ripping through most of their hits including I Lost my Edge Last Night and On Struggles for Change and Hope. The ebar was hosting a solid crowd to witness their last spectacle and most of the patrons were bopping around to their infectiously upbeat indie rock. It was a loose show that saw the girl on keys with the pointless stage banter hop up for some crowd surfing, causing her fellow band members to laugh through their lyrics. The dbag returned again much to my chagrin - even daring to interrupt the "lead" singer's song intro by grabbing the mic and flapping his oversized lips. After a round of thank-you's and goodbyes - both to the audience and to other members they closed out their last tune and fell into a round of hugs all around. A swell cap to a seemingly fun but somewhat shortlived band's life - part of me hope's that the evil Jerkmachine 61 will resurface in the future, if only to force Spymachine out of hiding to vanquish their arch-enemy. (6.5)
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Elliott Brood & the 'Buckles
NQ Arbuckle came out of the gates well, and I was into their sound despite the twang. They even marked the Remembrance Day occasion by singing a song with the lyrics lifted from a poem written about fighting in the trenches in WWI. After the fourth song or so I began to grow a little weary of their sound - perhaps the amount of country I can take in a night had been used up by that point. They continued with a bit of ramblin' country-ish tunes that had a few excessive breakdowns, and sure did wear down my appreciation for them.
Elliott Brood opened with a mostly instrumental - with the banging drums that would be a prominent feature of their set all night. For a three-piece they really create a large sound on their assortment of folky instruments including ukes, banjos, acoustic guitars, tambos and harmonicas. With that distinct Brood voice (I can't really describe it - just listen to a song) they chugged through a thorough set of new and used songs from their collection. The R3-popularized tunes that I knew well such as Without Again and The Bridge stood out and were excellent. Other notable selections were Second Son, and President's Dead - but the biggest standout of the evening was a romping rendition of the Elliott Brood classis "Oh Alberta!" which ends hilariously. For their final song (of a 90+ minute set) they busted out a huge sack full of percussion instruments for the crowd to play along that included pots, spoons, tambourines and all sorts of other dollar-priced goodies. This made this tune a lot of fun and the fun continued into the encore which consisted of the new album "Mountain Meadows" opening track, followed up by another great tune (that I'd forgotten about til they started it) Miss You Now. Despite the show's length I was rather entertained and continually pleasantly surprised as they broke out song after song that would reenergize the crowd.
Shout Out the Starlight
Shout Out Out Out Out were back and this time all members were healthy and ready to rock the starlight (unlike the last show there the night after "the kid" drummer had dislocated his shoulder). Complete with the dual-drumset, and high kicks they busted out a fairly typical SO4 set (which is anything but typical for other bands).
The band has notably dropped from four bass guitars to maximum two at times, while putting more emphasis on the keys, and sampler. Most of the setlist consisted of as-of-yet unreleased material from their forthcoming new album that the other drummer told us before the show was complete but had to be mixed. This is probably why the show didn't blow me away - since I was unfamiliar with much of the material, though they do have a fairly standard sound that this album will easily meld into. It was interesting that there is a small portion of a new song that is sung without the vocoder - which I don't think occurred on the previous disks at all. The few old faves were tossed in such as Forever Indebted and Dude You Feel Electrical. As is becoming the norm they closed with recently-released single "In The End It's Your Friends" that also closed last Starlight, and Hillside Inside. However they bungled the big tempo shift that they'd built up for so long when the singer came in without enough warning to the rest of the band to follow his lead. It was a shame to miss an opportunity like that because by this point in the night the club had built to a fever-pitch and if perfectly executed this could have made the floor go crashing down under the sag of all the jumping bodies. Next time Shout out out, next time.
Stereo Image opened and were two guys yelling into their mics to some prerecorded backbeats. Someone aptly described them as a very poor quality Junior Boys.
