I don't often do double duty on the same day, concert-wise, ie. going to two different sets of concerts on the same day, and I realize I'm sort of getting old for this. Ok, I say that partially in jest, but it is my birthday today and I've hit the mid-thirties mark(although I still look remarkably youthful!). Sandwiched between my birthday today and this past Saturday which was another friend's bachelor party, I made out to a couple of sets of shows yesterday. I'd normally post about these separately, but 1)I feel lazy, and 2)all the bands I saw played as part of the Over The Top Fest in Toronto. I made it out to the Sunday afternoon happenings at The Drake Hotel in Toronto and caught performances by Doris Day, Wyrd Visions, The Bicycles and Saturday Looks Good To Me. That evening I went to Hamilton, ON to The Casbah to see Mayor McCA, Jenn Grant and Great Plains, who all coincidentally had performed in Toronto the night before as part of the Over The Top Fest. Seeing those many bands in one day means I will hopefully keep my rundown brief.The Drake Hotel matinee show was actually split between an indoor stage in the hotel's posh basement music venue, and an outdoor stage on the hotel's roof patio lounge. Set times between bands were scheduled as such that you could go between stages and not miss anything. I missed several of the early acts but go there just in time to catch Barrie's Doris Day inside The Drake Hotel. Unknown to me at the start but their melodically-charged indie-rock with passionate female vocals was immediately likable. The dueling male and female vocals on some songs were fantastic. I perceievd a slight Walkmen influence especially on the harmonica-drenched "Karma-onica" which featured Doris Day's female singer flexing her vocal pipes very much like Hamilton Leithauser of The Walkmen. My new favourite song - now if only I had an mp3 of it.
Listen: Doris Day @ purevolume.com
After Doris Day, I headed up to the patio and caught a bit of appropriately named solo act, Wyrd Visions. I didn't know anything about the gentleman beforehand. He started his set cloaked in his hooded jacket singing a mantra-like set of lyrics with a similarly repetitive guitar arrangement. It sounded like what one of Stereolab's more dronier numbers might sound like acoustically. Mind you, I can enjoy repetition in some forms of music(Stereolab, post rock, electronic music) but Wyrd Visions stripped down approached didn't do it for me. I caught a song or two after that which was less repetitious but more of the same quiet folk-edelia. I'm probably not doing the music justice, so go listen for yourself:
Read/Listen: Are You Familiar? has a brief profile(with a couple of MP3's) of Wyrd Visions.
Listen: Wyrd Visions @ MySpace
I left midway through Wyrd Vision's set to go back inside for The Bicycles who were still setting up. Most of the members were wearing the bands trademark black t-shirts with white-emblazoned letter 'B' save for a couple of guest musicians in a similarly-styled red and white t-shirts. Adorning the stage were illustrated card-board figueres of each member of the band. According to The Bicycles' Matt, all these visual aids were to detract from anything that might be lacking musically during the show. It's been a while since I've seen The Bicycles live and I'm still borderline about liking them. I love their energy, humour and musicianship but musically am only half enthused. Their brand of indie pop is peppy, the musicianship having just that right amount of spunk, with bright horn embelishments and vibrant guitar work, but I still find the vocals quite a bit too fey for my liking. Every now and then the vocals dragged the music down to that too-cute indiepop territory(eg. Tullycraft) that I'm not much a fan of. On the other hand, their 60's surf/beat excursions, like The Bicyles Theme song were a blast live. Their first song of the set was my favourite and featured some meaty guitar hooks from Matt and a fuller indiepop sound.
Listen: The Bicylces @ MySpace
Last set of the day belonged to Michigan-based, Polyvinyl Records act Saturday Looks Good To Me. I'm relativey new to their music, having only owned an earlier album of theirs, "All Your Summer Songs", for about a year now, which I quite like a lot. Rather than that album's, Spector-ish, Motown-influenced indiepop, SLGTM's set at The Drake Hotel was a stripped down 4-member version of the band, consisting of guiar, bass guitar, drums and keyboards. Some of the Motown-influenced guitar work was still there but overall the set was quite a bit more rock than I was hoping for. Not to mention, I do miss the female vocals. The band performed some new tunes, one of which feautured a spacier, jammier direction. What I found most appealing about the show was SLGTM's lead vocalists to sing and play guitar while tapping a tambourine on the ground with his foot. Overall it was somewhat disappointing for me for the reasons stated above but still the band's melodic sensibility kept my interest afloat. Out of the day's acts I only got photos of SLGTM. I'll link to those later.
Listen: Saturday Looks Good To Me @ Myspace
Ok, so I lied. This post is already getting too long, so I will save posting about the evening portion of yesterday's concert-going for tomorrow.
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Watch the new music video for Jason Collett's "I'll Bring The Sun":
Yonge-Dundas Square has listings for it's Summer Serenades and Global Grooves series happening for free at the Square throughout the summer. Nothing indie-rock wise, but maybe you can find something of interest.
The Amy Millan show at The Mod Club on June 10th just got more attractive to me with the announcement of The Fembots as openers.
News of the passing of The Go-Betweens founder Grant McClennan is sad. I've always been on the periphery of actually been a ardent fan of The Go-Betweens but everything I've heard from them(and the few releases I own of them) have always been top-notch[via Stille Post].
Finally, although my close friends don't necessarily read my blog since I'm the only music geek of the bunch, I still want to say thanks for the birthday greetings, lunch today, the cake over the weekend, and other surprises during the bachelor party we went to on Saturday.
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