Feature: Canadian Music Week, Toronto – day 5
It’s the last day of Canadian Music Week and to be honest there were times, mainly getting back at 6am, that I wasn’t sure if we’d make it through the festival. We’re still standing though, and while the prospect of another night out drinking ridiculous amounts of beer is unthinkable, we dutifully head in the rain one last time! Pickings are slim tonight, there are only a handful of venues with live bands on and they have a limited amount. We make a decision to end the week where we started in Rancho Relaxo, but before we get there we stop off at Bread & Circus to catch Swedish indie popsters Katie Goes to Tokyo.
When we get to the venue, slightly later than planned, we reluctantly order the first beer of night and head out back where the band are already midway through their set. The room appears to be a small makeshift theatre, which I would imagine would be great for seeing small am-dram productions, but doesn’t lend itself to gigs very well. Even worse, the moribund crowd have opted to make use of the chairs that were stacked around the sides. Not only does this result in absolutely no atmosphere, but as there no chairs left it also stops anyone (including us!) being able to see the band without standing in front of everyone and blocking their view. Not wanting to be shouted at by a bunch of listless Canadians, we reluctantly give up on Katie Goes TO Tokyo (who, for what it’s worth sound pretty good) and make our way to Rancho Relaxo.
A couple more beers don’t manage to rejuvenate us so we’re hoping that Crimes in Paris can give us the lift we sorely need right now. 
Like many of the bands we’ve seen over the last five days, Crimes in Paris are a local band. Clearly influenced by English music, they play melodic indie pop varying from sweet ballads like the gorgeous ‘Running Ink’ to jangly C86 style guitar tunes; they remind me of Gene, though I doubt the band are familiar with Messrs Rossiter & co. Front man Rayce Veitch has a great voice, though he has a tendency to lift his voice slightly at the end of words giving the vocals a quirky clipped sound but the whole band are tight and confident, played live the songs sound as good as they do on record. Another album to add to my shopping list!
Spirits lifted but not yet firing on all cylinders, we retire to the bar and wait for the next act Sadie Hell to ready themselves. The singer takes a seat on the stage and announces that he’s going to kick things off with a solo song before the rest of the band join in. And it’s awful. Really fucking awful. The song, an embarrassingly over the top ballad (this guy has clearly never heard of subtlety), is bad enough but worse still is his guitar playing, which is so heavy handed you’d think he’d only just started learning. After what seems like forever he finishes his solo song and the rest of the band join him for pretty much more of the same. As I look around me the audience is diminishing at an alarming rate and I feel justified in my hatred of Sadie Hell.
After that horror show it’s approaching 1am and we decide to call it quits. However as we head towards the exit three guys sitting at a table grab our attention by shouting YO DUDE or something like that. They explain that they’re the next band on and ask really nicely if we’d stay to watch them kick some ass! As they ask so nicely, tell us that people say they sound like Weezer and buy me a beer, we decide to hang 
around and check them out. The band in question are Azores, a local indie rock band whose singer is keen to celebrate his 19th birthday – a big deal here as it means he can legally get pissed for the first time!
The floor is empty by now, there’s a few people sitting in chairs and a handful of people at the bar so these guys are going to have a hard time. Undeterred they kick off their set and they do indeed sound a bit like Weezer, though singer David’s voice is similar to Rivers Cuomo the delivery is closer to early Cribs. Within a couple of minutes ears are pricking up and the remaining people in the bar are already moving forward, this is a good sign. Unfortunately this is quickly followed by a broken guitar string, but while the string is replaced, JR on drums and Newno on keys entertain us with an impromptu and rather good dubstep session. Guitar fixed, the band get back in their groove and play an absolute blinder, it is indie rock but it has balls. All three guys have bucketloads of personality which comes across as they play and, based on the random shouts of ‘fuck off’ as he stamps on his effects pedals, I suspect front man David might have a slight case of tourettes too. By the time they finish their half hour set every person in the bar is down on the floor which is testament to just how good these guys were – they really did kick some ass!
And that was that. It’s been a fantastic week, we’ve seen some great bands, some bizarre bands and some bloody awful bands and drunk an awful lot of beer, but Our Canadian Music Week has come to an end in the same way it started; in the Rancho Relaxo with a great local band on stage. The only real difference is that five days later we’re physical and mental wrecks. Oh, and it’s stopped raining.
Mark Cousens
All photography by Kevin Lloyd – www.kevinlloydphotography.com
Check out these free mp3s from tonight’s top bands:
Crimes In Paris – Yesterday
Links:
www.myspace.com/sadiehell
www.myspace.com/katiegoestotokyo
No related posts.
