OK so let's hear everyone's NXNE stories!! Here's my Thursday night:



Easily Amused, Rivoli, 9pm -- I'd seen these two open for Shaye twice before and they were so great I had to buy their CD's. They're even BETTER with a backup band!! Not only that, but their band was comprised of Shaye's guitarist, Shaye AND Sarah Slean's drummer Blake Manning (who I heard SPEAK for the first time, he's a bit of a flamer!), and Kalan Porter's bassist (really? weird! I said). The set was AWESOME I absolutely loved it ... sadly the Rivoli was incredibly empty.. there were about half a dozen people sitting on the floor and everyone else was sitting or leaning around the edges of the place. I got to talk to them afterwards and get my CD signed and such, they were pretty friendly but it was kind of awkward lol. Renee remembered me and Kristin, and even noticed that I had since dyed my hair! lol.

Luke Doucet, Horseshoe, 10 pm -- From the Rivoli I booted it to Horseshoe (ok didn't quite 'boot it'... it's only two doors down!) to see Luke Doucet. I admit it, the only reason I've even HEARD of him, let alone having any interest in seeing him play, was because of what I'd heard about him dating Sarah Slean. I just had to see what all the fuss was about, really. This place was MUCH fuller; quite crowded in fact. I must admit he was pretty good. He has quite a few breakup songs, which I sometimes enjoy... and a few of them were rather... well, biting. For some reason he didn't stop STARING at me the whole show though, it freaked me out. I wasn't even that close to the front. Weird. Anyways I have to admit he's pretty sexy. Not in the romantically attractive and sweet and funny and pretty boi way. In the dirty 'i'll do anything that walks' way. Not that that's necessarily true of him, I really have no idea. But there's something sexy about him.

Matthew Barber, El Mocambo, 11 pm -- Met up with Jim and Nicole (who were stuck at the Martha Wainwright show and couldnt' make it to see Luke) for this one. I've seen Matthew before, playing with Sarah I think. He's the only person I've *ever* seen play the guitar left-handed, which is really cool. The show was really good but the venue was HOT (literally) and we bolted as soon as the performance was over.

Maplewood Lane, Holy Joe's, midnight -- First of all, this venue is amazing. Small, cozy, intimate, beautiful lighting and really good sound. The downstairs area is kinda sketchy, but that was easy to tolerate lol. The band (recommended by Nicole) was pretty good, bass player was hot. I started getting tired and stuffy (stupid allergies) near the end, and once the set ended we headed home!!! Got in VERY late!!

for my nxne stories... check out the blog

"blog" is a weird word

~ng


PS(and for a wussy post about being hungover... scroll down :?)

NXNE Day Two

So last night was MUCH more chaotic than Thursday

Valery Gore, Holy Joe's, 8 pm -- Not many people were there at first but the place filled up rather quickly and the show itself was great!! Her band was kind of cute, in the sense that they all looked REALLY young. I'd never heard any of her music before and I was really impressed by it all. Amazing pianist. The melodies were great, the only thing that kept throwing me was the seemingly random tempo changes for no apparent reason. All in all great show though, Nicole showed up a bit late, Jim much later, with a friend from work, and after a few bevvies

Primary Shapes, Holy Joe's, 9 pm -- so apparently some people needed to have drinks so we decided to stick around Holy Joe's for a bit. The next band started up. They were from Hong Kong. Pretty impressive for having just made quite a trip, and lacking many band members (it was just two of them, apparently they normally have half-a-dozen or so). The Engrish was really the best part though lol. We left after the second song, somethign about... the way people feel about each other, or the feeling between people, or something odd like that lol

Marco D'Felice, Cameron House, 9:25ish -- After departing Holy Joe's we headed to Cameron House because we didn't recognize the names of any of the acts playing there, and it was reasonably nearby. Only saw a couple songs by this guy but he was pretty good!

The Soir�e, Cameron House, 10 pm -- Stuck around for these guys before heading off to the 11 o'clock shows. A band of boys from Ottawa, not too bad, but nothing overly special. They were entertaining at least.

WTF? 11pm -- So for the 11 o'clock show there were three bands playing that we wanted to see: Fembots at Gladstone Hotel, NQ Arbuckle at Healey's, and Royal Wood at Holy Joe's. We decided to cab it (I more reluctantly lol) to Gladstone Hotel for Fembots. We arrived to discover a rather gigantic line-up outside, and a full venue inside (which we never got to see). There were at least a dozen people with special passes that got to bypass the line, and then probably 30-40 people with wristbands in front of us, and everybody who was there to see the previous performer had pretty well already left. After a few moments of being wishy-washy, we hopped back in a cab towards downtown again. I wanted to see Masia One, and figured the line might be as bad (given she's an MMVA nominee, and such), and there wasn't much else we'd be able to see, so we went straight to Richmond Lounge

M1 Academy (and others), Richmond Lounge, midnight-ish -- so we got to Richmond Lounge shortly before midnight and there was a previous performer on stage. There were more people working at the club than watching the performance. We hung out at the back and watched some people break-dancing (I will NEVER understand how they can do that, but I absolutely love watching it!) and after the guy on stage finished we moved up a bit. Some other person came on stage (to warm up the crowd maybe?) and did a few songs. Then Masia One finally came on, with one backup singer and a DJ. She did an awesome rhyme (pardon my horrid understanding of hip-hop lingo) to a sample of Hollaback Girl, I was totally blown away by her talent. Then it all got... not as exciting. APPARENTLY M1 Academy is not, in fact, her backup singers/dancers/etc., but is some sort of hip-hop learning session she runs at the El Mocambo on a regular basis. So, instead of seeing her perform for 35 minutes, after she did the hollaback thing she then passed the mic to some guy who was, well, alright at best. He did a couple songs, then she joined him along with another guy for one songs. This was followed by a break-dancing session (even better than the impromptu one going on earlier, and this was 'official'). After that I think they brought on another guy, and then had her backup singer accompany him. I eventually gave up and went home, realizing I probably would only get to see one more song by her, and I REALLY needed to go home and sleep for the midterm I wrote today lol.

Alright, that's done. One more night!

where are the last of your stories from yesterday?

I wanna know how the house party went.

~ng

I might actually get to bed before midnight tonight! Finally! What an intense concert week. White Ribbon was awesome, Martha was incredible and NXNE was terrifc and exhausting.

Highlights

- Valery Gore's sets on Friday night and Saturday afternoon - I like her more each time I see her.
- Colin Linden's surprise guest guitarist - Bruce Cockburn - who jumped up and joined Colin for about half his set at Lee's on Saturday night. Bruce then did one of his own tracks - "Waiting on a Miracle". Beautiful!
- 54-40 - I thought these guys had died or something, they've been off the scene for awhile. They just signed with True North Records and have a new CD coming out this week and blew the house down last night with their
hour-long set at Lee's on Saturday night. My ears are still ringing.


Lowlights - not many, really.
- Friday night, scrambling out to the Gladstone to catch the Fembots, only to be turned away by an overflowing crowd.
- Also Friday night, M1 Academy @ Richmond Lounge. I literally passed out - partly due to the 6-7 drinks I'd had earlier in the late afternoon/early evening, partly due to being exhausted from a tough week, but mostly to find some sort of refuge from the lame attempt @ decent hip-hop that the M1 Academy was.

Looking forward to next year!

...jim

You enjoyed Saturday's Gore performance more than Friday's? So she's better while asleep?


Here's my Saturday... my computer kinda died last night so I couldn't post anything! :S :S


[b:8189b34166]NXNE Day Three: Crash and burn...[/b:8189b34166]

But not without a couple pleasant surprises first!

7:30 pm, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Roy Thomson Hall -- OK this was COMPLETELY unrelated to NXNE but I already had the tickets and wasn't going to give them up! The show was amazing! They did a feature on the clarinet, the show featured renowned clarinetist Giora Feidman as well as some other soloists. We also got to experience the world premiere of a piece called Love For Life, written by Ora Bat Chaim (an Israeli composer) for two clarinets and the bass!

10pm, Natasha Alexandra, Fox and Fiddle -- My friend Mike recommended this girl (he worked with her at Sbux... and apparently she's from Hamilton! woot!). Nic and I were hungry and the Fox and Fiddle seemed a good place to eat, let alone wanting to see the music. We went and in my opinion this girl was amazing!! Not 'there' yet, but she's definitely got an incredible amount of talent and the total right attitude. This was definitely one of the biggest highlights of the evening

11pm, frustration -- After Natasha we TTC'ed it as fast as we could to Lee's Palace, arriving there shortly before 11 to discover a rather obscenely long line. The Rheostatics were on at 11, followed by 54-40 at midnight. We waited for a bit, a number of people abandoned the line. One of the bouncers came down the line and said that any ticket-holders (not wristband people... apparently this show had its own tickets) or people willing to pay $20 at the door to get in would be allowed in and to jump the line. Otherwise it didn't even look remotely promising. Since I had a friend's housewarming party I wanted to attend that evening anyway, and wasn't really looking forward to waiting outside for over an hour, or paying $20 to a sleazy bouncer, I headed off.... the party, though, was quite fun! lol

[quote:ce956787a4="Sweet One"]Maplewood Lane, Holy Joe's, midnight -- First of all, this venue is amazing. Small, cozy, intimate, beautiful lighting and really good sound. The downstairs area is kinda sketchy, but that was easy to tolerate lol. The band (recommended by Nicole) was pretty good, bass player was hot. I started getting tired and stuffy (stupid allergies) near the end, and once the set ended we headed home!!! Got in VERY late!![/quote:ce956787a4]
hahaha... okay, that amused me. the bass player is nathan, rebecca's (the singer) husband. he's a lovely guy!

i'm so thrilled you and nicole were there to see maplewood lane. i still can't believe i didn't see you two there! craziness...

well we got in a little late and booked it out of there right after. I can't remember why... either to catch another band or to just go home.

~ng

Haha. they're married? crazy! I never would've imagined that!
And yes, BIZARRE that we didn't see you! :S weird!

haha yeah... rebecca and nathan are married. they have a sweet little girl, ivy.

ryan and alana (the keyboardist who couldn't be there) are married as well.

it's a band of married couples! johnathan (the drummer) is married as well, but his wife isn't in the band. haha.