Hillside Saturday Late- Rich Aucoin, Elliott Brood (July 28/12)

Elliott Brood

With Elliott Brood I have had some magnificent concert experiences, ahem Vancouver Olympics, small Club Vinyl Guelph, but most recently a sub par show at the Phoenix in Toronto. Prior to their set I'd allowed the most recent memory to cloud my judgement and had decided to branch out and skip their set. However as things at Hillside changed on the fly I was able to come over for the last few tracks and, boy, was I glad that I did. Their music is so upbeat and just asking for people to clap, bang and dance along that when that doesn't happen (looking at you Toronto) an entirely important aspect of the experience is notably missing. At Hillside one needn't worry about whether people will dance though so I found myself swept up in the Elliott Brood swirl that was already underway. Unfortunately I apparently missed the flash-mob that broke out earlier, and didn't have a pot or a pan to bash on but that all would have just been gravy. A good time, not a long time, as I managed to shimmy to a few favourites including Valley Town and a joyous rendition of Miss You Now. The latter finally went off after speedily troubleshooting and replacing a wonky amp right before the final song. Whatta time!

Zeus
The tradeoff in staying til the very end of Elliott Brood was a lack of sightlines from the back corner picnic bench of the Island Tent for Zeus. It's not so much their visual antics as their revved up throwback sound that their show is about anyhow. That meant only catching glimpses of them shredding Marching Through Your Head and The Renegade, while not ideal, wasn't the greatest loss either.

Rich Aucoin
What do you get when you insert Canada's premier party-starter in Rich Aucoin into the biggest party night of Canada's premier festival? You get all of the following, plus so many more intangibles that I'm sure to have forgotten (and probably couldn't even put into words anyhow).

To begin with, the word was out and the tent was utterly crammed with partygoers excitedly bouncing beach balls in anticipation while the tech crew hurriedly set up for the final set of the night. Finally it got underway and it appeared like a shoddily built tower of cards with a video projector on top but somehow we got through the entire intro video without too many blackouts. The video, as always, featured a number of chopped up youtube sensation videos as well uplifting and hilarious thank-yous and shout-outs, including one to yours truly the "official Hillside weatherman" (a nod to a tweet from earlier in the day). This was all done in full darkness, and finally after the extended setup and then the intro vid, when the lights came up and the music started all of that pent up energy exploded into a swaying, frothing sea of humans. What songs did he play? Who played which instrument? These are inconsequential details when the fact of the matter is that it was sheer excitement and fun throughout the altogether too short closing set. Rich himself did some crowd surfing, set off heaps of confetti bombs, climbed one of the tent poles and generally hyped up an already hyper audience. And yes, the signature parachute did make its appearance! Unfortunately it was far too small to physically contain everyone in attendance but it stretched just far enough for me to be on the edge of it, and the childlike joy that it brought permeated the whole tent. As the song goes "we can't leave It all in our heads" and we didn't, as we absolutely went off, leaving it all on the floor and marching off into the night with exuberance!

Hillside Friday - Arkells, Kathleen Edwards, + (July 27/12)

A pleasant surprise at the first workshop of the night was when the female trio of Belle Starr incorporated a form of tap dancing as percussion in their set. How cool is that?!

Swapping out for New Country Rehab they were predictably country and then gave way to Kathleen Edwards. She played a love song for Hamilton, seeing as we were straight up the highway from there. There'd been whispers of Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) sightings that didn't make much sense considering their apparent split. Regardless he didn't show but Kathleen played a few of her own songs here in the Island Tent in warm up for her main stage set later in the evening.

Stepping away from the Belle Starr fancy stepping there was a Guelph showcase going on at the Lake Stage. All of Bry Webb, Esther Grey, Mike Brooks (in all white) and a bunch of others were on stage doing a Dylan cover with a slide guitar and cello too upon arrival. Esther jumped offstage for another tune and I slipped back away as well.

My expectations of Maylee Todd were not what transpired. There was a slow groove sound coming from the stage, bordering on reggae, that really wasn't translating to me. She had a bongo and drum, a couple of keyboards in addition to bass/drum/guitars but I just couldn't get into it and strolled off.

I was glad that I did too as I got to catch a chunk of Bombay Bicycle Club who I'd heard of but not being Canadian I had little exposure to them to this point. What I heard was enjoyable peppy indie rock from across the pond. The all-male five piece included keys and a sort of electronic drum machine. Later in the set a girl came out to join them and she returned on the finale that ominously asked "Where's the lightning?" which thankfully never came weather-wise. There was an additional standalone drummer for this tune and the female vocalist returned and all of this culminated in a thunderous, crashing ending. Won-over.

Caught just a minute of the gruff Crooked Brothers over at the Lake Stage. There were a plethora of mics on stage for this workshop with the Magnificent 7's and they helped to capture the multitude of voices used in the call and response of "This city should rise to heaven".

Following this workshop was another that had potential but with Joel Plaskett not in attendance due to illness, and Chad VanGaalen barely contributing in a main way it fell rather flat. The Birds of Chicago did take their first step to winning over Hillside as they would throughout the weekend but Geoff Berner was frankly terrible with his accordion song about the police. I expected Chad to counter with Freedom for a Policeman but he just made a bunch of noise and handed the reigns back over. Following this I couldn't hold out anymore and gave up on the whole thing in favour of Kathleen Edwards' main stage set.

Kathleen Edwards seemed to be in great spirits as she played a bunch off her latest, and in my opinion, most compelling, album Voyageur. Moving through the album there was Empty Threat and Chameleon/Comedion which both featured some solid electric guitar work from Jim Bryson and backing vocals from Julie Fader. She played a mix of acoustic and electric guitar, and a mix of songs from the title track of Asking for Flowers to Going to Hell, Change the Sheets, and Sidecar. Jim swapped out for keys at times and Kathleen even played the violin for a song. Ms. Edwards seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself throughout as they moved from a Jim/Kathleen duet to songs that were intended to make us dance. She even dropped a bunch of "motherf**rs" in her banter which at first seemed slightly potty coming from her but was said in such a positive way that she could hardly be faulted. Having finally see her play I was impressed with what I saw.

Unfortunately while Kathleen was entertaining me Young Empires were putting on a party over in the Island Tent. I only managed to catch their final song, White Doves, used for the Olympics, but what I did catch was fun. The 4-piece included some big bass and samples and had everyone in the tent up and dancing about, banging beach balls around and having a time.

The Arkells always seem to put on a heckuva show and this was no exception. Some exceptional elements were their Hall and Oates cover of You Make My Dreams. During Oh, the Boss is Coming! they installed a quick shout out to the former Guelph band, The Constantines, with a chorus of Nighttime/Anytime (It's Alright!). Naturally part-time/former Arkell, Dan Griffin, joined them on stage beginning with On Paper having performed earlier in the evening with his backing band The Regrets. Another special guest was Kathleen Edwards who had just vacated the stage so the Arkells could close it down. She appeared gleeful to be out on stage singing along with Max on Agent Zero - in fact she was still dancing and beaming even when she returned side stage. They closed out with Whistle Blower but of course were cheered back out for Deadlines (and a blip of This Little Light) before calling people (Aaron Goldstein, Kathleen and Dan again) out on stage for a rendition of a Bob Dylan with The Band song. The only way to wrap was a little John Lennon (their song, not the man - note the italics and not the bold) and this sent everyone home happy at the conclusion of Hillside night one.