I never thought that after
standing in rain and mud for hours that I would continue to be on my feet after
dark watching two people play Scrabble on stage at a rock show. Belle and
Sebastian, you continue to surprise me.
That wasn’t the only
surprise of the July 5 weekend, at the inaugural Toronto Urban Roots Festival,
held at Fort York.
Another was that a
multi-day, family-friendly rock festival was happening in downtown Toronto at
all, especially one where I never once lined up for beer (nor beer tickets,
which were not necessary), never once lined up for a bathroom, was handed free
non-alcoholic soft drinks, was always able to manoeuvre close to the stage, and
had a fine selection of quality food trucks to choose from. Even my
2.5-year-old son had fun on the one afternoon we took him (Saturday), thanks to
a lovely, shaded kid’s area.
The fact that lineups were
minimal is both a credit to organizer Jeff Cohen of Collective Concerts, but a
bad sign for him: attendance was low on the first three days of the festival,
with Sunday’s stacked lineup pulling at least three times the numbers of any
other day (based purely on my visual estimate and conversations with food
vendors). Cohen knew the first year would be a loss leader; hopefully his
(visibly endless) enthusiasm for the concept survives his pocketbook for 2014
and beyond.
TURF skewed heavily toward
“dad rock” (sorry for the sexist term), with few (any?) artists under 30. The
obvious goal was to create a downtown Toronto festival that competes with the likes
of Guelph’s Hillside Festival, which started as a folkie event 25 years ago,
slowly evolving to become a wildly eclectic institution with a reputation
that’s able to sell tickets before a lineup is even announced. More recently,
Daniel Lanois’s Harvest Picnic, held near Dundas and now in its third year,
also assembles top-notch bills, quality local food and great atmosphere with
minimal corporate branding.
I bought two four-day passes
at an early bird price, before the days’ schedules were announced. Turns out
everyone I wanted to see was on Sunday. No matter, I figured: anything else I
see is a bonus.
Starting a festival at 6pm
on a Thursday is a terrible idea: who the hell has time to get there after
work? I mean, other than CBC employees (who work a few steps away). I missed
the Barr Brothers (whom I respect, but don’t actually like); I saw about half
of Camera Obscura (whom I like, but do nothing for me live). That left Joel
Plaskett to make the most of the evening—which of course he did, being a consummate
entertainer, a lovable ham and a class act. I’d seen him deliver an even better
show at Hillside last year, but it had been awhile for the Lovely Lady by my
side, a once-avid fan who had her faith instantly reaffirmed right from the
opening strains of “Down at the Khyber.” The Lovely Lady has a visceral, almost
physical reaction to the thought of Zooey Deschanel doing anything at all—based
largely on our experience seeing an appalling She and Him show at Mergefest in
North Carolina in 2009—so we skipped out early. We also passed on Friday; only
Justin Townes Earle had us mildly interested, though later reports were very
positive for both Fitz and the Tantrums and the Arkells.
Saturday was a success
despite a serious of disappointments—that’s a sign of a great festival. We brought
the baby boy and saw Skydiggers, Lowest of the Low and the Hold Steady—a lot of
music for the 40+ set, all of it decent and dependable but by no means
riveting. The Lovely Lady pointed out that the Skydiggers average age has
plummeted, with only Andy Maize and Josh Finlayson left on stage with a bunch
of youngsters, one of whom, a new guitarist, looked like he was one of their
sons (he’s not). Twas nice to hear that the Lowest of the Low have at least one
great new song in their set, perhaps not coincidentally, one in which Ron
Hawkins sounds like he’s bitching about the kids. Whether the Low will ever be
more than a one-album nostalgic act is still doubtful, but at least they’re
trying. Sadly, we missed Frank Turner, who’s been on my to-do list for
years.
The Hold Steady provided the
best fans of the weekend, fist-pumpers who’ve memorized every ridiculously
wordy verse that spilled out of adorable frontman Craig Finn. I wish I shared
their enthusiasm: this was my virgin Hold Steady experience, having never even
heard more than a song or two. I remain unconvinced. I admire the spirit, but
the actual riffs and songs leave me flat, as does the drummer (and a mediocre
drummer always means a mediocre band). For a lyricist who sounds like he’s
aiming somewhere between John K. Samson and the Constantines’ Bry Webb (and I’m
pretty sure those three guys are all acquaintances, if not friends), I don’t
think Finn is that great a writer; he hammers many a weak simile into the
ground. Samson once told me that Finn teased him for taking five years to
follow up an album, a time in which The Hold Steady released three albums. But
I’d take Samson’s measured perfectionism (and his drummer) over The Hold Steady
any day.
That said, Finn and his band
deserve full credit for opening their set with 2008’s “Constructive Summer,” an
ode to all aging scenesters who still strive to make something out of nothing: “Let this be my annual
reminder / That we can all be something bigger … Getting older only makes it
harder to remember / We are our only saviors / We're gonna build something this
summer.” I’m pretty sure that Jeff Cohen was weeping tears of joy somewhere
side-stage.
Side
note: MC Dave Hodge, the former Hockey Night in Canada turned professional
Canadian music champion, was tasked with intro’ing The Hold Steady, which he
began by inviting Frank Turner on stage to say a few words. Turner knew what an
MC should do: he was passionate, inspiring, and segued perfectly into what
should be a triumphant opening note… except Hodge then said, “Woah, I just have
to say one more thing,” and proceeded to tell a stupid, sexist and pointless
story about going to see a Jays game with Jim Cuddy and Craig Finn, during
which Cuddy self-ID’ed Blue Rodeo as “a chick band” and Finn self-ID’ed The
Hold Steady as “a rock band” and bla bla bla—I guess neither Hodge nor Finn
seem to think chicks dig rock’n’roll. (Note: they do.) Whatever, dudes. Stick
to your sausage party, and next time leave Frank Turner to do his thing.
Social
commitments kept us from Sunday’s stacked opening salvo: The Wooden Sky, the
Sadies and Alejandro Escovedo. Which meant we arrived in time to be bored stiff
by Kurt Vile, a guy who has one or two pleasant Sunday morning stoner jams in
him, but—especially live—comes off as a poor man’s J Mascis. I wanted to
believe he’d be the perfect soundtrack to a lazy humid afternoon. He’s not.
Likewise,
I was excited Yo La Tengo were there; there was a time when they were one of
the few bands I’d consider following on tour, such was the appeal and
eclecticism of their live show. However, this is a band that doesn’t belong in
the daylight: the noisier jams lose all potency in an open-air setting;
likewise, the dreamier numbers merely drift into the clouds. I’ve seen this
band be both transcendentally great and awkwardly awful, often (though not
always) in the same show. This time, they were just there.
That
can’t be said of Whitehorse. The duo of Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland are
mid-level, mid-career CanRock survivors who decided to start from scratch and
build again from the ground up; the result towers over anything they did on
their own. They arrived at TURF as the favourite of neither the indie rockers
there for Yo La Tengo and Belle and Sebastian, nor the aficionados of
Australian hippies Xavier Rudd and Cat Empire. They had something to prove—and
wasted no time doing exactly that.
Whitehorse
functions like a roots rock TuneYards, constructing every song slowly with
component parts and a looping pedal. In this genre, that sounds like it would
be lame. It’s not. It creates a highwire act that enhances not only the
performance aspect, but arguably the songwriting as well: every tiny part of
the instrumentation is deliberate, every melody line is designed to stand on
its own without any accompaniment at all (i.e. the guitar line for “Devil’s Got
a Gun”). Yet even the conceit isn’t a match for the sexy schtick this married
couple deliver on stage; they play up their chemistry, right down to the shared
microphone positioned centre stage in front of the gear, into which they croon
perfect harmonies. Cheezy? Sure. Effective? Yes. They know a little
theatricality goes a long way, which gives Whitehorse both style and substance
in spades.
Then
the Australian hippies took over. Time for a break. To their credit, Cat Empire
was better than I expected, delivering perky party music, and Xavier Rudd was
even worse than I imagined: your most hideous nightmare of a white dreadlocked
guy playing a didgeridoo and singing about ganja. I thought the downpour during
their sets was some kind of divine judgment.
Of
course, if it was, I’d have to say the same about Neko Case. The rain had
ceased by the time she started to play to a crammed mudpit, but two or three
songs in the heavens opened yet again, a relentless rainshower that proved to
be a mere taste of the floodwaters that would arrive the next day. Lesser
audiences would flee. But this was a hardy lot. No waltz was too sad or slow.
No new song was too unfamiliar. This was the rowdiest, most raucous crowd I’ve
ever seen at a Neko Case show; every time I’ve seen her in the last 10 years
it’s been respectable but reserved, and the audience downright hushed. Frankly,
even as her records continued to improve, the show was getting kind of boring,
Not so here. Every new wave of showers only made everyone cheer even louder,
making Neko and her stalwart backing vocalist, Kelly Hogan, openly emotional,
wiping away tears of gratitude. (Then again, as too many songs will tell you, it
may just have been the rain.)
Me
and the Lovely Lady, we were cheering ourselves hoarse because Neko’s guitarist
was none other than Eric Bachmann, of Crooked Fingers and Archers of Loaf.
Sadly, there was no duet of his song “Your Control”—but not because we didn’t yell
out the title any chance we got. Here’s hoping he stays on in her band. Here’s
hoping Crooked Fingers opens her fall tour. Here’s hoping there will soon be a
lot more Eric Bachmann in the world.
Belle
and Sebastian fans are even more loyal than the Neko Case crowd. They only see
their heroes once every few years; for the first three or four albums, the band
rarely played live at all. So if it means waiting out the elements for an
instrumental b-side to open the show, followed by, among other things, the
aforementioned on-stage Scrabble game with a fan, then so be it. It’s not that
Belle and Sebastian take their audience for granted; on the contrary, they
bring a superfluous string quartet and a horn player on the road, they’ll do
electro reworkings of old singles, they’ll invite a dozen people on stage to
dance—hell, they’ll even let you do their makeup.
Before
I first saw B&S live, in 2006, I’d heard fey horror stories about a
shambling, twee mess of a touring band. Those rumours proved false—partly, no
doubt, because they’d just released their most muscular, upbeat album to date,
The Life Pursuit. Lead singer Stuart Murdoch was not a bookish church janitor;
he was a fully confident cutter of rugs, prancing about like a bona fide rock
star, not just a librarian’s secret crush, while the rest of the band’s study
of old soul records paid off in powerful grooves. Little has changed since
then: B&S are still an excellent live band with a deep songbook. I’m not
even the biggest fan: I listen only to three of the last four albums and a
singles collection, and then the charm wears off quickly. Live, however,
they’re entirely satisfying. Watching them, it’s easy to forget you’ve just
spent way too much of the last four days standing in the same place watching far
too much music.
Which
will hopefully be the first of many TURF traditions.
