Results tagged “concerts”

"I probably don't even need this microphone, to be honest!" Frontman Odario Williams and the rest of his genre-bending hip-hop group Grand Analog launched the Toronto Public Library's current Make Some Noise series straight from the kids' section of the College/Shaw branch last night, and the alternative venue proved a somehow very fitting setting for an affair that's typically relegated to dark clubs at late hours that no adorable two-year-old would ever be able to attend.

This year was Busking for Change's second: the event, which sees big-name (and other) musicians playing on city streets collecting donations for War Child ,started last year, and was born a little earlier, after Our Lady Peace's Raine Maida busked for War Child all around downtown for twelve hours back in 2007.

                  

The eleventh edition of the Steam Whistle Unsigned Indie Music Series took place Friday night, and the brewery's Roundhouse was full of smiles, music, and, well, yeah. Beer.

"When you see eight large columns and three heads of Zeus, you will know you have arrived in the correct spot."

Pearl Jam returns to Toronto tonight for the first time since 2006, and to say it's a hot ticket would be severely understating things: the show was sold out as soon as it went on sale, and this morning StubHub is fetching as much as $280 for lawn tickets. Toronto loves its Pearl Jam—and the feeling, one suspects, is mutual. The band used the city as base camp for a third of its 2005 trek across Canada and launched its 2006 world tour with back-to-back nights at Air Canada Centre. Eddie Vedder, meanwhile, played a pair of white-hot solo shows at Massey Hall last summer. It's no surprise, then, that Pearl Jam picked Toronto as one of its few 2009 destinations.

Brooklyn's Dirty Projectors were supposed to play at Lee's Palace on Wednesday night, but then they got in a car accident. They're okay—Domino Records released a statement saying that "all members of the band have been safely discharged from the hospital" but that "the band will be flying home to New York in the morning to regroup and rest." You can't really blame 'em.

             

Well, it's over. We came, we saw, we didn't wait in line once (thanks, priority pass). But before we throw up our tattered white flags and rejoin society, it’s nigh time for some sort of festival wrap-up to prove we were actually there and weren't just telling you what to do. So here is a smattering of reviews and photos from our handsome reporters who we set loose into the night every night for however many nights it's been. Marvel as we run down our most memorable shows (thankfully limited to maybe one-quarter of what we saw) in hopes of helping you relive the magic. Or at least helping you fake like you were there if any of your cooler friends ask.

When Tamarama rolled into town for STAND Canada’s latest Darfur benefit concert, they encountered a mob of fawning teenagers and twenty-somethings. Indeed, the transplanted Australian-American reggae-rockers found a half-capacity, albeit captive, audience at Toronto’s Berkeley Church last week. And the reason for all the wide-eyes and short-shorts in the room? Reality television.

On the same night that their magazine counterparts were feeding on a chocolate fountain at the Carlu, the scrappy newspapermen and women of Toronto's major dailies were knocking back bottles of Molson and rocking out at the Opera House: Newzapalooza V, the city's fifth annual Battle of the Media Bands, went down last Friday, raising close to eight thousand dollars for the Children's Aid Foundation. And far from strumming as Rome burns, the event served—intentionally or not—as a defiant celebration of the romantically proletarian spirit that somehow still manages to underpin the culture of the broadsheets.

Many of the world's greatest discoveries were made serendipitously. From Post-its and silly putty, to microwaves and penicillin, lots of good things happen by mistake. When Brian Joseph Davis, while browsing the web at the Blocks office, misread the name "Alvin Lucier" as "Alvin Lucifer," he asked his colleague Steve Kado how he might put to use his misinterpretation. And in the world of grant money and experimental everything, a tiny misread can mean a whole new method. So begat "Alvin Lucifer."

Music and movies and theatre—oh, my! Thanks to local indie music impresario Eric Warner, you'll be getting all three of these forms of entertainment in one tidy festival package. With events kicking off today and continuing through to Sunday, Warner has jam-packed Over the Top's schedule with all sorts of tricks and treats for the whole family to enjoy.

The Tragically Hip really have nothing left to prove. They've peaked commercially; arguably, they've peaked artistically (it's hard to see Day for Night ever being surpassed). But they're not standing still: their latest album, We Are The Same, is a gem, and they’ve recently embarked on a five-month-long North American trek that's already got fans salivating.

Bill Gilliam is pretty courageous. While most children prefer not to think about their parents’ love life, Gilliam has embraced it. In his latest and perhaps strangest concert, Poems from a Love Triangle—which we had the pleasure of seeing on Saturday night at the Music Gallery—Gilliam uses the illicit love triangle between his mother, Marianne Gilliam; his father, Laurence Gilliam; and stepfather, the famous Irish poet William Robert (Bertie) Rodgers, as a source of inspiration.

According to the Canadian Press, the Ontario Government is about to introduce legislation that will stop companies like Ticketmaster from being such wieners when it comes to reselling their own tickets. According to the government's website, "the legislation, if passed, would prohibit related primary and secondary ticket sellers from selling tickets to the same event. An individual fine of up to $5,000 and a corporate fine of up to $50,000 would also be created for violations." Just three months ago, Ticketmaster was the target of a half-billion-dollar lawsuit alleging that the company scalped its own tickets on TicketsNow.com (a site it owns, too).

At first it all seemed simple: Billy Bob Thornton, famous actor, goes on CBC's Q last Wednesday and is a total dick to the show's host, Jian Ghomeshi, for hinting at Thornton's Hollywood fame rather than his barely known band, the Boxmasters. And that's how it played out, for a while, landing on Perez Hilton, Gawker, the Star, BlogTO, the Canadian Press, Digg, etc., etc., etc.

Last Thursday night, a lucky few who thoughtfully pre-ordered Metric’s new album filed into a secret show on Queen Street West to get an early taste of what they invested their dollars in. The event's details, aimed to promote the April 7 release of their latest album Fantasies, was kept under wraps until hours before doors opened, but the late notice didn’t prevent the house from filling up with around 150 fans who were willing to cancel their evening plans. The deceptively named Great Hall was actually quite small for the figurative size of the band, but perfect to set the cool, secret vibe of the exclusive show.

U2’s latest record, No Line on the Horizon, is the band’s best since Achtung Baby—and on Wednesday, September 16 (and assuming Ticketmaster doesn’t jettison its entire ticket stock to scalpers beforehand), we’ll get to hear it live at Rogers Centre. Say what you will about the band, its lead singer or its/his tendency for nauseating self-aggrandizement: U2 knows how to deliver the goods in a live arena, and the design for the forthcoming tour looks jaw-dropping. And it may not even cost you all that much to attend: according to a Billboard report, ten thousand tickets per concert will be available at thirty dollars apiece. U2’s most recent Toronto appearances—a four-show run at the Air Canada Centre in September 2005—caused Ticketmaster to crash within seconds of tickets becoming available. Be prepared for a similar occurrence on Monday, March 30, when this year’s gig reportedly goes on sale.

       

Families at Saturday's Right to Play fundraiser took in a star-studded roster of musicians including Ron Sexsmith and the Violet Archers featuring Tim Vesely. Most attendees blissfully ice skated and drank hot chocolate while big-name stars played in the background, but all eyes were glued to the stage for I Eat Kids, a band comprised of actual children. From oldest to youngest, they are Zoe, 10; Sadie, 10; Georgia, 9; Edi, 8; Oliver, 6; and Jessa, 6. Okay, awww.

For the record, we still think Soundscapes or Sonic Boom should have taken the trophy last time. In CBC Radio 3's inaugural edition of Searchlight last year, an infant store from Prince George, B.C. claimed the prize for Best Record Store in Canada. But this was clearly pre-ordained―in Prince George, a town of about eighty thousand in the northern abyss of a province known best for its bud, it's only natural that hordes of bored (and potentially stoned) music fanatics would rally together to vote for their one and only vinyl shop, Meow Records, a shop already adored for surviving a flood and forming an all-girl roller derby team. Record-loving Torontonians, however, must have been divided amongst the city's divine selection, deciding to act on the virtues of fairness so that none of our wonderful vinyl depots would feel left out. We understand.

Every Sunday, Torontoist features an illustration of a concert from the past week, with a focus on local talent.

Every Sunday, Torontoist features an illustration of a concert from the past week, with a focus on local talent.

Photo of A Neon Rome (Neal Arbick, Ian Blurton, Kevin Nizel, John Borra, Bernard Maiezza) at the Beverly, 1985, by Bruce Lam.

Every Sunday, Torontoist features an illustration of a concert from the past week, with a focus on local talent.

Every Sunday, Torontoist features an illustration of a concert from the past week, with a focus on local talent.

Every Sunday, Torontoist features an illustration of a concert from the past week, with a focus on local talent.

Leslie Feist is back. She's playing shows in London on October 31 and here in Toronto on November 1 (at Massey Hall) and 3 (at the ACC). Yesterday, she was host of a surprise "songwriters circle featuring members of her touring band (Afie Jurvanen, Jay Baird, Vancouver songwriter-cum-guitar tech Bob Kemmis), her opening act (Hayden, along with his touring guitarist Wayne Petti of Cuff the Duke) and old friends (Doug Paisley)" at the Rivoli, according to Eye. We're pretty sure that we took the southbound Dufferin bus with her to Queen West late Monday night. And we're also pretty sure that Feist fans might want to be on high alert for a secret show that just might be happening this evening.

FILM: Give yourself something more exciting to contribute in the Starbucks lineup tomorrow than your ruminations on the latest episode of Gossip Girl, and check out Trouble the Water at the opening of the 2008-2009 Doc Soup season. Chronicling the story of a black couple (and yes, we did need to mention their race) finding themselves in the middle of the chaos that is post-Katrina New Orleans, the film is being hailed as one of the most important documentaries to have come out of America in a long, long time. Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor Street West), 6:30 p.m., 9:15 p.m., $12.

Every Sunday, Torontoist features an illustration of a concert from the past week, with a focus on local talent.

MUSIC: The Mahones, The Warped 45's, and Eugine Ripper are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Fast Folk Underground concert series tonight at the legendary Dakota Tavern. The Mahones are getting ready to tour the US with Irish-American punk-rockers the Dropkick Murphys, so bail out on that financial planning appointment you had with your accountant, grab yourself a Jameson's, and get ready to wake up tomorrow feeling like a character from a Bukowski novel. The Dakota Tavern (249 Ossington Avenue), 10 p.m., $10.