Flaming Lips - Riot Fest Saturday (Sept 6/14)

The Flaming Lips show had been built up to nothing short of epic in the years since I'd failed to pay attention to them at Sarstock (at this very same venue) during which I'd discovered Yoshimi at the very least. Noticing the massive tanks of compressed gas on the stage earlier in the day I finally got to see them put to work as the confetti began to fly, and not just to the front of the stage but at least fifty meters out into the the air where it rained on and on and down and down for minutes onto the entire crowd who had squished in for the spectacle. Included was a two-person dancing rainbow, a couple magical mushrooms and all sorts of other eye candy in the way of streamers and lights. They stuck around for the opening and the naturally acoustic Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (Pt 1) during which Wayne Coyne had to roll the karate chop back. "I find this really sets the tone for the show and that just isn't going to cut it. 'The name is Yoshimi. She's a black belt in karate.'" He did not stop there as he was the cheerleader the whole time, pumping up the crowd and reminding us that we get back what we put in. Unleashed were 'Fuck Yeah Riot Fest' balloons that bopped over the crowd but only the H survived.

After the mushrooms and rainbow went offstage they were replaced by a couple caterpillars mid metamorphosis to butterflies, and a shining sun - plus a couple of alien blow ups (It doesn't have to make sense.) Wayne reemerged in an anatomic "body"suit that was then covered in silver tin foil streamers before his famous party trick - the hamster ball. Inside this huge ball he crossed atop the crowd and nearly came to my position halfway back, a showman the entire time. Following this was an odd bit on a raised platform where he was coddling a fake child with video projections of running women and the strings of lights still all over the stage. It gave a moment to notice the six-piece band, including a standing and a seated drummer, who were playing through all the nonsense of the show.

Their signature song for damn good reason is Do You Realize? and it was live rendition rung out in all of its epic glory, with Wayne unnecessarily asking us to help him belt it out. This could easily have brought this bold spectacle to a close but the cover of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds felt like an bonus shot, as Wayne was back up on the raised platform and each time the chorus came around the ridiculous strobe lights would strobe and the confetti overtook the sky yet again. Woo - a whirlwind. "Incredible" was the word that was falling off everyone's lips.

The Cure - Riot Fest Toronto (Sep 6)

The Cure were the headliners on Saturday night which made sense to a degree, considering how many "throwback" bands were playing. I've never personally taken much notice but so many bands made mention of this set that I figured the least I could do was stick around and check it out. The five of them - electric guitar, bass, keys, drum plus Robert Smith on guitar - are still hard hitting and have some fine guitar work. Much of the set was lost on me, especially from the back, but I did recognize and enjoy Just Like Heaven and Love Song, of course. I was waiting for Friday I'm In Love however they had nearly a 2 hour timeslot and they just couldn't maintain my attention for that long and I split an hour in.

Death From Above 1979 - Riot Fest (Sep 6)

Sure I'd just seen them with only 200 hardcore fans a few nights prior but that didn't mean I was going to miss another chance to check out their show. After all they disbanded for nearly a decade so you gotta take it when you still can! The stage set-up, the clothes and the band (yep, still no guitarist) was all very similar but the setting was thousands of extremely excited fans as dusk fell on the first afternoon of Riot Fest Toronto. Once more they opened with a 'classic', Turn It Out, from their only album released to that point, as Physical World, from which they would pull much of the rest of the list wouldn't drop until Tuesday. Again they followed up with Frankenstein and Virgins but from their things diverged from the previous show to some degree with different Woman/Machine tossed in (including You're a Woman, I'm a Machine) and playing every single new cut. This included Gemini which Sebastien dedicated to his wife for their anniversary, saying "this is very un-rock and roll", which it really was. Besides that the set did rock, adding Go Home, Get Down (but not Black History Month or Pull Out). The crowd felt like they'd been waiting for this show for years, rightly so, and were giving it their all up front - Romantic Rights dropped right as someone yelled for it and the sea of people soared with it. The backing tracks triggered by the electronic drumset were a little more pronounced as Sebastian messed around with them a bit. Once again the set closer was the title track and album closer, Physical World, and it fits really well with that final burst at the end to lay it all out. Right On.

Mounties, Rubblebuck, NFG, + - Riot Fest Saturday (Sept 6/14)

Mounties
It seems that people have tired of Hot Hot Heat, or maybe HHH got tired of their own sound, either way Steve Bays seems to have found a new outlet for that unique voice of his. Much is made of this being a Canadian supergroup, so there was Hawksley Workman with his raised kit right up front of the stage, plus Ryan Dahle (Limblifter). But there was also a guy manning the tickle trunk, a literal chest stood on its side marked with Mounties on it and full of shakers 'n things, plus a rover who sometimes shook something or strummed something too. As a relatively recent formation they have only the one release to draw from and opened with album opener, Pretty Respectable. Steve bounded around the stage under his carrot-top-like mop, doing a full lap or two and showily juggling his mic (and once embarrassingly dropping it). When he did have keys to play they were usually rocked one way or the other. Hawksley wanted some time in the spotlight too though and held lead vocals while drumming on a few tunes. As an early afternoon set their time was limited, and by the time they all chimed in on the banter (you can see where the playful creativity comes in with this crew), they were rushed to fit it all in. Of course they hit on this summer's release Tokyo Summer, and the very HHH chorus of If This Dance Catches On. We all got hooked on the teaser release Headphones though so that was the natural closer. And close it did fully - then after Workman had already packed up and walked off the rest of the crew started back into it to the point where Hawksley jumped back onto the drums despite the repeated cut sign from the stage crew and they jammed out for another minute or two.

Rubblebucket

The Brooklyn septet had driven up for the show and were in party mode, as per usual. Led by their close-cropped lead female singer it is the bombastic brass duo who push the sound, not to mention their ostentatious choreographed dance moves. Being on the up and up most of the crowd probably wasn't overly familiar with their music, especially the album that was just dropped, but that didn't stop them from amping it up. Came out of a Lady was a hit at Hillside and same goes with Riot Fest. The mini parachute that they carried through the crowd while playing and singing certainly helps draw attention. Once back onstage the pink (vagina?) flower mascot could have been more playful but was certainly a sight in itself. To close out they did pay for love.

New Found Glory

NFG? Yeah, "no fucking good" - or so the old joke goes. In reality though these guys were a-ok. They have made a living on pure pop punk and show no signs of slowing as the three members up front stalked the entire stage in front of their drummer. This meant the music perhaps wasn't the tightest as they ran around but the energy was certainly there. They did Better Off Dead and then on Hit or Miss the singer stuck the mic into a bunch of fans faces to prove that his voice actually isn't that annoying, relatively speaking. In closing they hit on another old favourite, My Friends Over You which again saw only about half the lyrics sang but this many years into the game I'd be sick of singing the same tune too.

Bad Suns were four young people with a slightly grungy garage edge to their lighter indie rock. Despite not providing much banter the lead singer appeared vibrant while singing over their playing and the backing drum track.

Glassjaw had a very clear, loud sound that wasn't as aggressive as I thought/remembered, for the short time that I watched them The appearance of their skinny, bald, brown bass player stood out for this festival and genre but he sure knew how to play.

National, City and Colour - Riot Fest Sunday (Sept 7/14)

City and Colour

Dallas spoke about how he nearly turned down this 'punk festival' but then thought better of it 'punk is doing what you wanna do' and so here he was shutting the whole thing down Sunday night. As per usual as soon as he strolled out to a great R&B Soul II Soul song with his four-piece backing band, including key/pedal steel player, all that could be seen from the crowd were thousands of tiny glowing screens. Unfortunately he didn't rip into people which is usually the most fun of his show. In fact there wasn't too much banter as the set started quite lighter - especially after that intro song only for them to launch into a super slow opening track. The start of the set was more C&C of yesteryear than the rock-leaning version that has been seen of late. One of the first half highlights was the Grand Optimist as in the darkness the smoke show really worked in the spotlights. He also took Coming Home down in tempo, not that it bothered the drunk girl trying to sing and wave along at album speed. That song, as with many others, proved some great electric guitar work especially from his band members. The Girl bordered on country before they began bringing the rock back around in the latter half. A cover of Thrush Hermit's The Day We Hit the Coast, voluntarily assisted by "the hippie from Moneen," stuck with that trend as Green declared it one of his favourite Canadian songs by one of his favourite Canadian bands. Their final song was a long, meandering tune that didn't exactly elicit encore enthusiasm but it was a foregone conclusion with 15 minutes remaining. The disappointment in the encore wasn't simply that it did not contain a lightly speculated but highly unlikely Alexisonfire reunion (Jordan Hastings, drummer, at least, was on hand with Say Yes) but also that it consisted of only one song. Not only that but Dallas admitted it was probably not the popular choice, instead that it was his favourite and played Two Coins. Is that punk rock or poor showmanship?

The National
Warning, what you're about to read can't be unread.

Recently I heard Matt Berninger describe his lyric writing style as sitting down with music provided by his band and just working words to it until he came up with a song. I think this has ruined The National for me. Yes they make some epic indie tunes but just knowing the lyrics are the actual nonsense that they seem irks me now - I was much happier thinking there was some deeper obscure meaning. Sorry if this has the same effect on you.

That being said I went to check their set as day turned to night which was beneficial for their large projection screen not unlike the Flaming Lips from the night before. This displayed distorted live feeds from cameras set in all sorts of places around the stage showing the seven-piece, including a two-piece brass section. The setlist was a decent selection, drawing early on a lot of Trouble Will Find Me material which is well received like opener Don't Swallow the Cap, as well as I Should Live in Salt, Sea of Love (with harmonica), and I Need My Girl. For the last in that list the guitarist, while wearing a guitar around his shoulders held another by the butt end and tapped the end against the stage to make that reverberating sound. Matt seemed to lose it for a minute as he closed out Graceless and was knocking the microphone heartily off of his own head. They did touch on some older material including Ada, Bloodbuzz, plus the brash brass on Fake Empire, along with double raised guitars at its end. Speaking of ending, Mr.November is a gimme in the set and saw Matt enter the crowd and seemingly lose mic connection as the latter half of the song was taken over by his backing band and the crowd crooning along. After that, the final song, was Terrible Love which had him really stretching the cord as he came deep into the crowd - right up to me and I hadn't really pushed in, crowd surfing for a bit of it too. Oh Matt, up to your old shenanigans again.