July 20 2015 – With each passing summer, we notice more and more consumers putting their entertainment dollars to festivals. Typically somewhere in the $100 range you get to see a large number of bands, and if you care enough you get there very early in the day and stake out a spot in (or near) the front row. The only downside (at least for us) about festivals is their attempt to please fans of every type of music so you have to sit through a musical style that is not your thing to get to that one or two performer/band that you do like.
Big Music Fest in Kitchener, Ontario squashes the multi-genre paradigm, and delivered a night of straight-up-no-pop-filler, rock and roll. This immediately makes it our favorite festival around the Toronto area. Although the festival actually ran for 6 days in 2015, the main night of music was Saturday July 11. The schedule went down like this: The Modern Hearts, The Mohrs and The Glorious Sons filled in the opening warm up slots and then things got big time with the four main acts were Extreme, Monster Truck, Jane’s Addiction and Soundgarden. This is our Big Music Fest 2015 review – a video recap is below:
The venue itself is McLennan Park in Kitchener, Ontario. A couple of notes about the venue. Instead of grass the whole concert area is covered in mulch making it very difficult to sit comfortably. Parking in and around the area is tricky because there is no big major parking lot to handle all the traffic and the city of Kitchener does not permit street parking around the venue. The area in front of the stage is divided in half – with part of it being the VIP area and the other part being normal ticketed area. The normal area does not permit alcohol so to have a beer during the festival you had to go in the back of the venue. VIP area did permit drinking up against the stage. Aside from those notes, the venue is wonderful, the sight lines were good, the sound was very good, and the vibe was amazing. Overall one of the best venues for a rock festival we have been to.
The first band we were able to catch were The Glorious Sons. This 5 piece from Kingston, Ontario are getting some traction lately with significant radio play and many high profile support acts. With their big 3 of Ruby, White Noise and Mama they delivered an energetic early set to a venue that was still filling up. Demanding the audience over and over to put their f*ing hands up, did solicit the required audience participation for a rock and roll party.
Next up we got into a band that sold over 10 million albums and had a number one Billboard hit. Extreme is a band that most have not heard of since the early 90’s but their level of professionalism is evident. Lead singer Gary Cherone even did a stint as Sammy Hagars’ replacement in Van Halen for an album. Guitarist Nuno Bettencourt is as much a hard rock virtuoso as anyone you might consider for that honor. His riffs were technically proficient and his acoustic solo was a clear highlight of the set. Of course their big song was “More Than Words” and the acoustic ballad got the biggest singalong of the day. Their 10 song set featured 5 songs from their big album Pornograffiti which hit double platinum.
Monster Truck – WOW! The Hamilton rockers had something to say about who Canada’s best rock band of all time is/was. Man these guys laid out a polished set laced with hard rockers that would have challenged Black Sabbath as the world’s heaviest band in the 70’s. Monster Truck haven’t played Canadian soil in about half a year and they came back hard to assert their dominance. Their big three of Seven Sea Blues, Sweet Mountain River and The Lion really took over the park and the air guitar and headbanging of many in attendance was in full effect. Monster Truck have not played live for so long because they are recording a new album they told us (and they also did a stint in Australia opening up for Nickelback – a statement that does not cease to make me laugh as I am clearly not a fan of that soulless pop rock of that west coast band). Don’t Tell Me How to Live and Midnight are two new tunes the band played and their rich hard rock melodic goodness bordered on Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple territory. Hard to quantify who the best act of the night was as it’s all personal opinion but both T-Mak World editors agreed at the end of the night, Monster Truck ruled Big Music Fest 2015. Can’t wait to hear the new album guys! Note: If you are a fan of the band we put up a separate article featuring lots of photos of their performance which you can see here.
Jane’s Addiction took over the stage and the celebrity of Dave Navarro spread over the park. The LA band has been in existence for 30 years and has only 4 studio albums in all those years. Their 11 song set was heavy in their first 2 albums with 8 songs being drawn from Nothing’s Shocking and Ritual de lo habitual. The band’s two big hits – Stop and Been Caught Stealing were of course played tonight and got the crowd into it. Perry Farrell looked alot like Jim Carrey’s character in The Mask tonight (minus the green face). His suit is now on sale and can be had for $1000 (jacket and trousers) – no idea how we know this random fact, but there it is. Farrell (jokingly) told us that they were partying in the bus in Niagara falls with his teenager and some hookers. He joked “don’t write that down” so of course we will! Much like a Motley Crue gig, the dancing strippers came on and recreated the Nothing’s Shocking album cover by sitting on a two seater rocking chair and doing the provocative moves. They also got did a cirque du soleil floating in the air act but with hooks on their skin. The show was surely a treat for big fans of the band but I can see how it can be perceived as cheezy for the casual observer. The music was loud and hard mostly and Navarro is actually a very good guitarist (if you didn’t know).
Time for the headliners – Soundgarden. Clearly the band that most in attendance were here for, they showed why they are considered one of the greats of rock. Unlike some of the previous bands that relied and theatrics and having to plead to the audience to get into it, Soundgarden took the opposite approach. They just got into their instruments and let the dark and moody grunge spill out. The main crowd interaction was lead singer Chris Cornell telling the audience that he had never seen such a big cloud of pot smoke in his life (indoor or outdoor venues) and that he didnt even need to use smoke machines on stage. He then proclaimed to invent the pot smoke machine and market it to the world. Soundgarden delivered a 17 song blistering set and started off as strong as possible with Spoonman – one of the band’s better known songs. Guitarist Kim Thayil was in fine form and delivered riff after riff of grunge (which I guess is considered classic rock now). Like all good live acts the band dug into its chest of rarities and pulled out a song named Birth Ritual that was not played live since 1991 (except for their dates earlier this year in Australia). This was the band’s first show in four months and there were no signs of rust. Soundgarden is truly part of the holy trinity of grunge with Nirvana and Pearl Jam but tonight it just seemed like a beautiful set of good #RealRock. Note: If you are a fan of the band we put up a separate article featuring lots of photos of their performance which you can see here.
Verdict: 4.5 out of 5 – Finally a festival that focuses just on rock. A lineup deep in the 90’s (let me guess the guy that selects the acts is in his mid to late 30’s?) that delivered an excellent overall experience. We are big fans of this festival and wait for next year’s lineup with great anticipation.
