NXNE 2013: Top 10 Moments

It would be fair to say that Toronto got hit by festival season pretty hard last week with Luminato, MMVA‘s and NXNE all descending. Now in its nineteenth year, NXNE continues to grow, with huge free concerts from the likes of The National, Joey Bada$$ and Social Distortion amongst others. Add in the parties, after parties, bedroom shows, pop up stores and secret shows – it makes for quite a week. We asked our intrepid reporter Mar Sellars to pick out some highlights, first up the bands then come the moments that make this festival so special.

Moon King

I wanted to do a piece entitled “The 5 acts you probably didn’t see at NXNE but you should have” but then I wouldn’t have been able to include Moon King, as they played 3 shows and the one I caught (9PM Horseshoe Tavern) was packed. They are my current favourite band in Toronto. Fronted by Daniel (ex Spiral Beach, sometimes goes on tour with his brother Doldrums) and Maddy (ex Spiral Beach and occasional Odonis Odonis), the duo’s vocals intersperse so well, it’s a beautiful harmony of reverb loveliness over fuzzed out guitars playing the most catchy dream pop you can imagine. But it’s not wimpy. There was even a mosh pit during second to last song ‘Sleeping In My Car’ which is quite a high-energy ride, nothing like actually sleeping. Moon King are coming to Europe in September. Be there.

Foxtrott

The Montreal solo artist transforms into a duo live on stage, with only vocals and a French horn to speak of (I know!). OK, they had a backing track. But it was still very impressive to see someone playing French horn at 2AM in the Silver Dollar (known to be a sludgy rock n roll venue). The highlight of the set for me was their cover of the Smiths’ ‘There is a Light There Never Goes Out’, as it was the second time I’ve seen that song performed live in the last 2 months (Johnny Marr played it in April). But Foxtrott has enough original material including their Shields EP to have a pumping set. I know it’s all the rage to be a solo female artist from Montreal singing over electronic pop beats but this lady writes really catchy tunes.

Jay Arner

The best way to describe Jay Arner’s music only works if you are a Canadian and/ or you know the band Sloan. Jay Arner’s music sounds like Jay Ferguson (of Sloan)’s songs. Not only do they share a name but they share a similar taste in music. They’ve even dueted on a song together (‘Uncovers‘). It’s a soft spoken touch, with keyboards, temperate drums and layers of guitars. Jay Arner (and his backing band) played on a tiny stage at the back of Handlebar, half the band were on the floor and if a member of the audience wanted to get to the bathroom you had to climb over guitarist Evan. I watched a whole song staring at the band’s bums while waiting to return from the loo.

Cousins

You’ve probably already heard of Cousins. Having started out as a 4 piece, they have evolved into my current favourite Canadian duo, line up changes seeing them now consist of of drums (Leigh Dotey) and guitar (Aaron Mangle). I first saw them in a vintage clothing shop last September in Montreal and every show has just gotten better. Cousins have a unique blend of stop/start garage rock that will be left in your head for days: I wake up with their songs buzzing around my brain. Live they plummet through each song not caring how sweaty or how red in the face they get. They played two sets at Hand Drawn Dracula’s 5 year anniversary party at the Garrison and it’s the most full that room has ever been at 9PM.

Odonis Odonis

I’ve seen these guys quite a few times. They’ve evolved from a straight up noisy punk band into, I want to almost say an industrial noisy punk band. I think that’s the influence of drummer Jarod’s home made half electronic drum kit and their use of backing tracks. I’m sure of one thing though that Odonis Odonis is a wall of noisy goodness with distorted vocals and guitars that you can bop, dance and sing-along to. They played a few NXNE shows but I caught their set on the Bruise Cruise. Half the time I couldn’t tell if it was the water or music that was swaying me.

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The Bruise Cruise

A few friends seemed very wary of the Bruise Cruise, “you are trapped on a boat for 4 hours? Sounds like hell”. This was definitely not the case. For one thing it’s only 3 hours. For another it’s curated by M for Montreal and the Panache booking agency and they have a knack for programming amazing bands (Odonis Odonis, We Are Wolves, Fat Tony, Mikal Cronin). It’s exactly what it says, a cruise around Lake Ontario with bands playing. It was a perfect sunny idyllic day as we sailed around the Toronto islands, I found it very relaxing hanging out on the roof deck soaking up the sun and then returning below to watch some of the bands’ sets. Just a lovely peaceful Saturday afternoon.

Pints of Caesars / Rooftop Parties

The best thing about NXNE is it rolls around every year just as summer starts in Toronto and all anyone wants to do is be outside with a drink in hand. NXNE seems to have grown this year with a huge abundance of outdoor parking lot / rooftop parties. Vice had a free gig in a parking lot, Exclaim! had a construction themed parking lot party and I went to a roof top party where you could get a Caesar (Canadian version of a Bloody Mary using Clamato juice) in a pint glass. So tasty. That kept me going for another few hours of watching bands.

House Shows

I’m too old to go to these sorts of things but Ewan of Moon King fame had a party on the Thursday night in his apartment, which began at 2AM. Sean Nicholas Savage played a secret show in his living room at 3AM and everyone partied until 9AM. I heard it was epic and magical. There was quite a few house shows over the week, including Tim McCready’s all day BBQ house show that goes for 12 hours in his backyard and living room. Buck 65 even played!

Crowding Surfing during Merchandise

Merchandise played a secret show the first night of NXNE at Parts & Labour, a basement venue with very, very low ceilings. P&L has terrible sight lines, it’s hot, it’s stuffy and generally the sound isn’t amazing. But the best part of Merchandise’s busy set was all the crowd surfing, you have to picture being in a basement where the ceiling is only about 7 feet high and every time someone jumps up to crowd surf they are immediately squished right into said ceiling.

Sunday Night

It was kind of like the end of SXSW. By Sunday all the out of towners have gone home and there’s only a handful of remaining NXNE shows to choose from but it has a great local relaxed vibe to it. I checked out brand new band WISH’s (featuring members of Milk Lines, Breeze, Decades and Beliefs) first show ever. Truthfully the band sounded a lot like their other bands Breeze and Beliefs.

Iceage were also the secret band on at the Garrison and it wasn’t too crazy busy, everyone was out on the street hanging out in the warm night heat just enjoying one more night of 4AM last calls.