Torch Burns Bright for (and in) the Royal City

What, you may ask, are those people doing in the photograph above? The answer is simple my friends, they are paying tribute to Royal City, the band, in the Royal City, Guelph. In response to the release of a fine collection of Royal City B-sides and rarities a night was arranged to honour the indie rock band that stole many hearts (and even a Juno-nomination) during their brief existence (loosely 1999-2004). Included in the tribute evening were a laundry list of artists who knew RC, befriended RC, were influenced by RC, and were even members of RC back in the day (though as one performer pointed out, most of the band disappointingly were unable to attend).

For full disclosure I will tell you now that I was unaware of Royal City while they were still together, but have recently heard many rumblings and picked up the Royal City 1999-2004 disc. When I saw the likes of Guelph's current indie-elite honouring Guelph's past indie-elite I couldn't pass up the opportunity. And I'm glad that I didn't...

Opening with what he joked were the two shortest RC songs he could find, Gavin Gardiner of the Wooden Sky got the night rolling with a couple of simple acoustic guitar renditions.
Gavin handed over the torch, still burning, (get it?) to Magali Meagher of the Phonemes along with her accompaniment that included former Royal City member, Nathan Lawr on drums, as well as D'urb - Kyle Donnelly and a lovely singer Stephanie whose origins are unknown to me. They were the first band to imitate the 'sit down' style that RC employed by pulling out chairs for the set of a few tracks with both acoustic and electric guitar.
Nathan Lawr remained onstage but switched from drums to acoustic guitar to play one quiet, but very lovely song, after retelling stories of Vish Khanna (host, Neutron Stars) during their days of touring together. Evan Gordon contributed an excellent electric guitar solo that fit well.
Next up were the atrociously named Cry, Cry Papsmear who busted out a prerecorded electro version of I Want To Go (lazily referred to by most as Honolulu) to which they danced the robot the entire time (pictured above) and eventually got us all singing along.
The energy level which was raised by the previous performers was one-upped by the gang of Noah 23 rapping, Scott-o-bot of RaggMopp holding it down on the guitar, and a drummer whose name I didn't catch. This was a very creative performance with Noah laying down the Bad Luck lyrics in rhyme, as well as freestyling about Royal City. A highlight of the night for sure!
A highly anticipated brotherly duo of Evan and Geordie Gordon (The Magic, Barmitzvah Brothers) played a couple of Royal City songs, which Evan should have been comfortable with considering he was at one time a member of the band. He sang first with guitar in hand, while Geordie played an inherited, broken keyboard set to imitate an organ, over a drum machine track. Geordie took over vocals for the second track and they played on despite issues with said keyboard. I'm sure they made dad (James Gordon, musician), who was in attendance, very proud.
Greg Denton played a banjo and Arthur McInnes a guitar for a rendition of My Brother is a Meat Man.
Though Jenny Omnichord admitted to being too young to have been very aware of Royal City, just by being so involved in the Guelph scene she's come to know them well. Her three-song set of Royal City covers played, as always, on her trusty omnichords (she's got two now!). Since The Nations Will Sing we figured we might as well too and sang along - "Buuuurning Torch".
Drawing last, Andy Magoffin of the Two-Minute Miracles, came out alone with his guitar and his "City of Guelph" work shirt. Sticking to Royal City covers he did a total of three songs in a very soft manner and included the quaintly-titled Blood and Feces. He made a quip about RC lyrics in general, gaining the right considering they recorded much of their material in his own studio. Although his performance was quite lovely, it was definitely a quiet finale to a sporadically-explosive evening of covers and tributes to Royal City.

Vish, host and organizer, admitted it was his first tribute show which probably led to the 'random artist ordering' which seemed to be a mistake, especially in the end. As nice as the tribute was, I found myself craving closure. Sticking around after the final artist I half-expected a handful of performers to come up for one last song as an ensemble - something we could sing along to and hum "C.I.T.Y, Royal City" as we headed out into the night. Alas it was not to be, but the memories of Royal City were reignited and these performances burn on.