Festival Diary: Oh! Canada vs NXNE- Part 3

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

Having regained our land-legs following the afternoon’s Bruise Cruise, Saturday evening at NXNE began with a trip to The Great Hall for Calgary Label Flemish Eye’s showcase. Appropriately for a band selling buttons with the slogan “duzheknew will be here in 20 minutes”, Halifax, Nova Scotia’s duzheknew arrived late on stage. All was forgiven within moments however, when the band kicked in with their infectious melodies, backed by scattershot drumming, galloping rimshots and parping saxaphone, as well as the occasional improptu guitar tapping outburst. On paper, or indeed, on the web, this combination of sounds shouldn’t work, yet somehow it does. Frontman Adam O’Reilly emits yelps with his jangles, while prowling the stage like a raptor crossed with a newly born giraffe, thowing in the occasional leg stretch or lunge mid-song.

For her set, sometime Constantines and Fucked Up collaborator Jennifer Castle was backed by members of newly announced Polaris longlisters 100 Dollars. Sadly for Castle, and for us, her gentle, soul baring folk sounds with occasional psych diversions were largely drowned out by the incessant chatter that filled the Great Hall. With eyes closed and soft voice crooning tales of love and loss, these were songs that deserved the attention that sadly few seemed able to give.

While the chatter continued, it was somewhat quieted by the arrival onstage of one of this years success stories Braids. Having made the move from Calgary to Montreal and released debut Native Speaker, the band have been on the road for much of the year. Now that album has been Polaris longlisted, and for the second time in as many days, the bands show is one of the most talked about shows of the festival, as can be seen by the number of the people now crammed into the increasingly warmer venue. With all these positives, what could go wrong? Food Poisoning. Walking onstage and placing a bucket behind her amplifier, lead vocalist Raphelle Standell-Preston announced that she had had a disagreement with some barbeque earlier in the day (a problem that also was apparently affecting Chad VanGaalen’s bass player Matt Flegel). However, as soon as the band launched into album opener Lemonade all thoughts of sickness were forgotten, harmonies soaring above the precision instrumentation, working through each song in turn, the intricate sonics filling the room.

With Chad VanGaalen about to tour the UK, the decision was made to headacross town to see Shad, producer of one of Oh! Canada’s favourite albums of last year, TSOL. Heading to The Ballroom, a bar above a bowling alley (geddit?), we arrived in time to see Toronto hip-hop collective 88 Days of Fortune doing their thing, with members Wolf J McFarlane, KJ and Brendan Philip taking it in turns to showcase their differing styles, demonstrating pop know-how coupled with trippy future-soul.

While they had the crowd moving, Shad’s arrival turned things up a notch. When Shad took the Juno (Canada’s Brit’s) award for Best Rap Recording last year, people began to sit up and take notice of ‘The young ‘un out of London”. With DJ and live bass player, Shad wasted no time in bringing the hits, launching into ‘Rose Garden’, the sprung floor heaving underneath the assembled throng. While many hip-hop shows can suffer from muddy vocals merging into one long mumble, Shad’s vocals had the same clarity as the lyrics he was spitting- and a good thing too, as in almost every song he managed to add unique, speed of consciousness freestyles. There was even a quick Cure cover thrown in for good measure thanks to a forgotten guitar chord. By the end of the energetic set, it was smiles all round, Shad taking time to individually thank the numerous fans that have been mouthing every lyric back to him throughout the hot and heavy set.

Sunday saw the gradual wind-down of NXNE, as Toronto got taken over by the Much Music Video Awards, featuring live outdoor performances from the likes of Lady Gaga and City and Colour amongst others. While much of the crowds headed to downtown to try and catch a glimpse, we headed north to Wilco themed sandwich shop Sky Blue Sky, to catch the launch party for Static Zine, which continued into a nearby park hosting acoustic performances from Bravestation and Sister (Carla and Lynette Gillis of Plumtree/ Scott Pilgrim fame). Playing with a double bass for the first time, Sister’s set was the ideal accompaniment to a late Sunday afternoon in the sunshine, the brushed drums and sweet harmonies mixing with the sounds of the park: the perfect antidote to the madness of the proceeding few days.

Yet there was still time to head back to Yonge Dundas Square for more- this time a show from D-Sisive, yet another Polaris longlist nominee (for his free downloadable album Jonestown 2: Jimmy Go Bye-Bye), who was joined by Muneshine and Ghettosocks for much of his set. There aren’t many hip-hop artists who can get away with namechecking GG Allin, Jay Retard, Brian Wilson and Daniel Johnston in their tracks, or mention going to see Vanilla Ice with his mom, yet D-Sisive managed all this and more during a set filled with humour and heavy beats. Sadly, the sunny weather and the nearby pop extraveganza may have pulled away some of the audience that his talents so richly deserve.

While D-Sisive’s set would have been a fine way to wrap up NXNE, a late night text message tip off leads us to Cloak and Dagger in the small hours of monday morning, where Rock Plaza Central played an impromptu reunion show, including a unique “cover” of Justin Timberlake’s “Sexyback”. Impromptu it may have been, but the show succintly summed up all that was great about NXNE: a celebration of people coming together and sharing music and, most importantly of all, enjoying themselves.