Festival Diary: Oh! Canada vs NXNE – Part 2

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Last week saw over 650 bands take to the clubs, bars, rooftops and public squares of Toronto for the annual NXNE festival. In the second part of his festival diary, Ro Cemm – the man responsible for our Oh! Canada compilations – tells all.

Friday morning saw Oh! Canada head to The Global Village Backpackers early to set up for ‘East Meats West’, the free Kelp Records/The Line of Best Fit BBQ with performances from Pink Moth, The Elwins, Slow Down, Molasses, Shuyler Jansen and Kite Hill. It was also a celebration of 17 years of Kelp Records, 17 years of NXNE and the launch of the 17th edition of Oh! Canada – and all taking place on 17 June!

With the BBQ starting at 1am, it wasn’t long before people started coming in to catch Pink Moth’s elegant pop set. Next up were Newmarket, Ontario’s The Elwins. Full of youthful exhuberance, and with their own mini-fanclub in tow, the band set about winning over the BBQ munching crowds, and do so easily with their polished Strokes-ian pop-rock chops.

Next to cram onto the stage (for “stage” read “gap underneath the fire-escape” were Saskatchewan’s Slow Down, Molasses. Playing as a six piece they ripped through a set drawn from both debut I’m An Old Believer and recent follow up Walk Into The Sea. While the new material certainly follows the rootsy template laid out before, there are deeper textures here, and the imedeate melodies are underpinned by subtle touches- the typewriter-as-percussion on ‘Sometimes We Fall Apart’ being a case in point. It’s a brave band that attempts a My Bloody Valentine cover at the best of times, let alone with a make-shift patio soundsystem, yet they pull it off with aplomb. Is there such a thing as Praries post-rock? If so these guys should be the kings of it.

They handed the baton over to fellow Prarie Dweller Shuyler Jansen, who, backed by Foam Lake, spun his moody and spacious take on alt-country.

Closing the BBQ were Kite Hill, the project headed up by Ohbijou’s Ryan Carley. Joined by original member Mika Posen, just returned from touring with Timber Timbre, the Toronto natives weave an enchanting orchestral spell over the crowd. Soothing and melancholy in the late afternoon sunshine.

Friday night, however, was never destined to be soothing or melancholy. Oh! Canada relocated to The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern ( one of the only venues known to have played host to all three generations of Hank Williams). Since first featuring The Darcys on these pages in early 2010, the band have undergone some fairly major changes, including replacing their singer. However, new line up in place, the band seem energised in the build up to releasing their new album. Despite the early set time, the band draw in the curious with their taught and twitchy sounds and rumbling basslines. While vocals soar and croon, the frontman flits flits between guitar and keys as quickly and easily as the band switch from ethereal twinkling to full on paranoid snarl. Essential to the success in this exercise is the ultra-tight rhythm section, whose propulsive and intricate rhythms provide the twin guitarists space to freak out at the pedal boards.

Continuing the sense of Paranoia were Black Lungs, side project of Wade from Alexisonfire. With that bands frontman Dallas Green busy with his City and Colour project, Wade has been able to return to his hardcore roots, ripping through 12 songs in just over 25 minutes, while simultaneously calling out the phonies and his own boredom like a tattoed Holden Caulfield on the appropriately titled ‘You’re Fake’.

Ducking out of The Horseshoe for fresh air there was just time to catch Victoria’s Slam Dunk playing a somewhat less than full Hideout. Not that it seemed to bother them mind you, as they set about their take on Rock N Roll ramalama replete with a flamingo-legged saxophonist (who would later launch himself at the stage and “crowdsurf” the room, held aloft by two people). Theirs is the kind of no-brainer punk’n’roll that the likes of King Khan and Mark Sultan do so well, and you suspect that had they played to the larger audience that they deserved it would have been one hell of a party. As it was, the decision of one audience member to perform some kind of elaborate calisthenics routine during the set provide a bizarre element to a no-frills rock show.

We returned to The Horseshoe just in time to witness the moshpit victims from hardcore supergroup OFF!’s set seeking sanctuary, and in time to get down the front to witness a set from long time Oh! Canada favourites The Pack A.D. The duo are one of the hardest touring bands in Canada at the moment, and their declaration that they never practice may be offset by the fact that, well, when you play a show every night there isn’t much time to. Life on the road has given the band a confident swagger, and a stage banter that can only come from hours upon hours in a van on the open road. “We’re from Vancouver. We’ve Got our Hockey Sticks. Don’t Be Scared,” they declare before launching headlong into the first song.

Later they once again reference the hockey riots in the introduction to ‘B.C. Is On Fire’, while swearing it was written well before the trouble started.. Maya Millers drumming is like a performance art piece, one minute holding aloft a drumstick aloft like excalibur before bringing it crashing down on the snare, windmilling and eyerolling, scattering the drums like a whirling dervish. Meanwhile Becky Black pirhouettes the stage, clambers aboard the drum kit, leaping off, all the while churning out progressively heavier riffs. Two new songs debuted move yet further away from their blues-rock beginings, into a more visceral and urgent punk-rock attack.

The garage rock didn’t stop on Friday night however, as early on Saturday 400 or so people piled on to NXNE’s inaugral Bruise Cruise, a boat trip on Lake Ontario presented by M for Montreal and Brooklyn Vegan, featuring shows from JesusLesFilles, Uncle Bad Touch, Young Guvernor (of Fucked Up), and Ty Segall. As the sun beat down on the deck, many chose to stay and discuss the order of the day (“were OFF! too preachy?”, “How good was the Fucked Up show?”, “Am I seasick or just hungover?”), rather than venturing into the bowels of the boat to witness the bands, where they could have seen event organiser Mikey propped up against Uncle Bad Touch’s drum kit to prevent the drums falling off the stage.

They also missed the saxaphone infused pop sounds of Young Guvernor, although on such a beautiful day it was hard to blame them for not wanting be in another stale humid room. By the time Ty Segall took the stage, however, the room had filled up somewhat, and were rewarded by a set that declared the set “The best thing to ever happen to me in my life,” after being joined by OFF! (and former Redd Kross) bassist Steve McDonald for a riotous cover of Redd Kross’ Annette’s for the Hits. Given that Segall had had his teeth broken when moshing at the previous nights show got out of hand, it was the least he deserved.