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| June 15 2012 Featured The Darlings Of Chelsea Rocking On the Bar of the Bovine for NXNE 2012 |
June 16 2012 – North By Northeast (NXNE) took over Toronto’s bars and clubs last night for the third night with a full slate of musical options. NXNE is in it’s 18th year and features 780 bands and 40 movies over 7 days.
Our coverage of NXNE began with Emerging Artist Spotlight interviews with:
These are all bands we strongly endorse and hope you can catch them next time they play. There were simply way too many other bands to see so a bit of research is needed to make sure you saw the bands that suit your taste. We published a handy guide of our picks here in a simple to use .pdf document that can be printed and carried along as you bar hop.
We saw 13 bands on the first day, 14 on the second, tonight our Rock N Roll pilgrimage added 12 more. For those who are mathematically challenged we saw 39 bands in 3 nights so far. Here is how the night went for us:
8pm – The Unquiet Dead at Cadillac Lounge. The band’s NXNE bio tells us “Windsor’s mystical, psychedelic throwbacks to 60’s garage rock with the Byrds’ melodic indie-pop aura.” With 9 artists on stage they kicked off our night with a stompin rocking good vibe.
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| The Unquiet Dead at NXNE |
8pm – First You Get The Sugar at Wrongbar. The band’s NXNE bio tells us “Bruising classic rock, pulsating dance rhythms, haunting harmonies and oven-baked pop goodness from new Montreal group.” Interesting mish-mash of genres with some solid stage presence made these rockers a good stop for the night.
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| First You Get The Sugar at NXNE 2012 |
9pm – Sam Cash at Supermarket. The band’s NXNE bio tells us “Toronto indie-folk songwriter promoting 2010’s “Teenage Hunger” LP.” Unfortunately not much of a crowd to play to but the passion in the music was evident nonetheless.
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| Sam Cash at NXNE 2012 |
9pm – Cousin at El Mocambo (main). The band’s NXNE bio tells us “Pavement style hyper-tuneful caffeine-rock with all the slacker impulses of a stoned up late teen near deadline day.” As we start getting into the thick of things the Elmo starts picking up steam for Cousin (not to be confused with Cousins whom we saw yesterday). Great set with a great groove.
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| Cousins at NXNE 2012 |
9pm – Secret Broadcast at El Mocambo (upstairs). The band’s NXNE bio tells us “Blending influences from last decade’s post-punk revival and more conventional classic rock, The Secret Broadcast sounds like a late-eighties, Chicago-based Radiohead.” We interviewed the band ahead of their NXNE appearance here. Massive band with a massive sound. Great show left us wanting more of this band.
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| Secret Broadcast at NXNE 2012 |
10pm – TimeGiant at Supermarket. T-Mak World says “My money is on them to be Toronto’s next big band in the tradition of Max Webster, Triumph and Rush. Mustaches and long hair have never been cooler!” We review the set in a full article here but the summary is one word – wow! Aside from the excellent music, these guys know how to put on a show. Their woke up the Supermarket and delivered a professional grade set.
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| TimeGiant at NXNE 2012 |
11pm – The Blue Stones at The Sister. The band’s NXNE bio tells us “Gritty garage-blues duo who, if doubled in size, would probably sound like Black Keys-style arena-sized rock. As it is, they’re spiky lo-fi alt-ers with a point to prove.” We interviewed the band ahead of their NXNE appearance here
These 2 guys from Windsor gave us a Black Keys style performance but in a small venue. What more can we ask for? Very talented guys, with very good original songs. We loved them!
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| The Blue Stones at NXNE 2012 |
12am – The Boxing Lesson at The Hideout. The band’s NXNE bio tells us “Mammoth wall of sound psychedelic, spaced-out Brian Jonestown desert rock and Spirtualized-style freak outs.“ We interviewed the band ahead of their NXNE appearance here. Incredibly tight sound which made me think there were four more musicians hiding in the back. Incredible set from this Austin, TX band that is now 100% on our radar.
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| The Boxing Lesson at NXNE 2012 |
12am – Darlings of Chelsea at Bovine. The band’s NXNE bio tells us “With the stone cool arrogance of New York Dolls, the stubbornness of Strummer and ferocity of the MC5, Darlings of Chelsea are probably the band most suited to playing a Bovine Sex Club imaginable.” We interviewed the band ahead of their NXNE appearance here. For sure the most energetic performance of NXNE that we saw. The massive energy culminated as the Darlings of Chelsea ended their set on top of the bar! Great rock n rollers.
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| Darlings of Chelsea at NXNE 2012 |
1am – SUMO CYCO at Bovine. The band’s NXNE bio tells us “Female fronted “warped and sexy collective who are ready to burst eardrums and explode eyeballs”, centred around big metal riffs, dancehall riffs and smouldering vocals. Cf. System of a Down, Slipknot, and No Doubt, they are waiting to kick it hard.” – Double take is that Gwen Stefani singing with a real band with real music? If you closed your eyes you would certainly have thought that. Great energy continued at the Bovine for SUMO CYCOs set.
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| SUMO CYCO at NXNE 2012 |
1 am – Bella Clava at The Hideout. The band’s NXNE bio tells us “Brace yourself, Bella Clava make one hell of a fuzzed out, blues rock racket with a grungey backbone. Never has a band more appropriately come from Thunder Bay.” We interviewed the band ahead of their NXNE appearance here. We liked this band so much that we seen them twice this NXNE. Grungey Blues heavily infused with old school synthesizers and heavy guitar riff is how we described it last time and we stand by that statement. Awesome band!
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| Bella Clava at NXNE 2012 |
2am – (secret guest) illScarlett at The Bovine. The band’s NXNE bio tells us “Juno-nominated 4-piece from Mississauga building major international buzz. Throw some ska, punk, reggae, dub and alternative rock into the blender, add upbeat energy, and hit “mix.” A great party band taking great steps toward the big time.“ Ska-Reggae-Rock mix of music lit up this secret guest spot. Secret guests are awesome because they are only announced an hour or two before the set starts. We saw The Balconies on a secret guest spot and now the illScarlett rocked out the Bovine as the second secret guest.
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| illScarlett at NXNE 2012 |
Verdict: Tonight we saw 12 more bands to make our total 39 bands seen at NXNE 2012 so far and this turned out to be a great night of music. Every act we saw was very impressive but just for fun here are our mentions for “gig of the night” from the T-Mak World NXNE team.
Terry: I am such a huge fan of TimeGiant that it will be almost impossible for any other band to get a “gig of the night” mention from me on a night that TimeGiant is playing. My enthusiasm for the band was elevated to an even higher state tonight after their NXNE gig, and gave me hope that 70’s style stadium monster rock is back with a vengeance. My “gig of the night”mention predictably goes to TimeGiant. My runner up and very honorable mention goes to The Blue Stones.
Steve: My “gig of the night” was Bella Clava at The Hideout. Bella Clava also rocked the Bovine on Wednesday but we didn’t catch all that show. Caitlin Dacey’s soaring vocals, psychadelic organ lines and funky piano, paired up with Steve Suttie’s classic rock guitar stylings Messrs Page or Perry create a sort of AeroPurple. Highlight of the night was Ding Dong Ditch. I’m still recovering.
John: Long before the first guitar riff, front woman Sever’s honey dripping sex appeal pulls you in. SUMO CYCO infectious rage rock lit up the Bovine Sex Club as Sever channeled every fibre of early Gwen Stefani with her mind bending vocals making every number a theatrical narration. SUMO CYCO was my “gig of the night“.
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| The Blue Stones at NXNE 2012 |
