For the record, “eff’ing metal” is a good thing. I’ve encountered more than one person who grew up in the urban center of GTA who didn’t get that. That’s the reason that I’ve thought twice about getting the “Jesus is F’ing Metal” t-shirt. Most people don’t believe me that it has nothing to do with the Revelations ramifications and the fact that I’m a PK.
Yesterday I scored tickets to the second day of this year’s Virgin Music Festival out on Toronto Island. Saturday’s headliner was Bjork, and I’m always astonished at how I’m the only person who doesn’t like her music (it’s like she records three good songs in different tempos and keys, then plays them all at the same time). Sunday’s headliner was Smashing Pumpkins. It’s been a long time since I’ve been so happy while crammed in with 10,000 people.
When Billy Corgan through a hissy-fit and claimed that he’s tired of fighting the “Britney’s of the world”, I realised that a lot of bands I had never had the chance to see live were fading away. That’s probably one of the reasons I jumped on the bandwagon when the Sex Pistols played the Molson Amphitheatre.
By definition, watching the Pistols 25-30 years after they were most relevant in a large venue is as punk-poseur as one can get without getting a teardrop tattoo. However, I justified it by saying that I could never see them in their glory days, so now I just want to have the experience of having had seen them. I will also use the excuse that the Dropkick Murphey’s opened, but that was really only a happy coincidence.
While the whole band wasn’t really up on stage last night, the mood definitely was. The newest Pumpkins album isn’t going to shift the music world into new grounds, but it proved that they are still relevant to the New Rock scene.
Billy Corgan played for an hour and 45 minutes before taking a pre-encore disappearing act behind the stage. During that time, he played the hit singles, some of the new stuff, and several 10-15 minute epic songs. After the fifth such song, there was a bit of a lull in energy. “Yeah, we get it. You can play guitar really fucking well. Get on with it.”
There were also solos from the drummer, but we never got to hear from the other guitarist or the bassist. The bassist was doing her best bass-chick bit. Almost makes me satisfied I’ve never seen Melissa Auf Der Maur play (yet).
However, when they played the high-energy classics (especially “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”), the audience went mental. I was slamming my head while most of the teeners around me were just bopping to the music, but they proved that the band still has what it takes to channel angst.
Other short notes about the festival - we left before the encore started, and waited an hour in line for the ferry. I can’t imagine how long it would have taken had we waited to the very end.
The Merchant’s Row was actually pretty good. There’s one nasty trend I’ve noticed in the years since the “Bubble” burst. Few companies are willing to hand out swag. Concerts, festivals, conferences and conventions have slick sales guys (or student summer staff) in these booths costing several thousand dollars, handing out pamphlets that make it 10-50 feet before being dropped.
People will keep swag! GM had t-shirts, RBC had a whistle with a blinking LED on a lanyard, and Energizer had a stuffed bunny. Half of places appealed to people’s vanity with “let us take your photo and if you don’t win the contest you at least get a photo”. In 2001 I went to one of the very last Comdex’s here in Toronto. That was the last time I got so much cool swag up until this weekend. The Xbox 360 booth was set up for people to come up and play Guitar Hero 2, but it really wasn’t that busy. Why? NO FREE SWAG!
Other bands we saw, in chronological order, include dd/mm/yyyy (pronounced ‘Day, Month, Year), The Cinematics, Tokyo Police Club, Metric (excellent performance, bravo Emily et al.), and The Killers.
dd/mm/yyyy had a great performance, and it was cool to watch four of the five performers switch instruments throughout. I’ve heard them before on various Indie podcasts, but I found them hard to listen to live. It sounds like they’re playing a lot of minor keys and the lyrics are akin to Ross from “Friends” making music on his keyboard while mashing random sound effects. The music is good, so I’ll still listen to their songs on my iPod. I don’t think I’ll be rushing out to see them play again, but that’s just my musical tastes.
My final note is that Virgin Mobile had many tents set up, but no two were the same. That was refreshing since there was no “been there, done that” as you’re wandering around to different areas of the island. One tent was selling all the Virgin line of phones for a full 50% off. I picked up a Samsung phone for only forty bucks. The shape and size are nearly the same as my current phone, except that there’s no protruding antenna. Also, the battery on my current phone barely holds for longer than two days, and the charger has to be positioned just right so that it will work. Basically, within the next year I would have to replace it and this was my opportunity to do so cheaply.
The phone also comes with a cruddy camera and Bluetooth connectivity with nothing I own. I really didn’t want to have to pay for features I don’t want or will never use, and I managed to get away with it in this case.
Plus I got a free case for it. Yay swag!
