Here we go again. It has flourished and faded, transmogrified and conformed, relocated and rebranded, triumphed and sucked. But, despite all of the ups and downs, CFNY’s (102.1 FM) Edgefest has been a Toronto-area mainstay since 1987 and it has always delivered, exposed and fostered Canadian talent.
For the 2014 installment, organizers once again threw a confounding change-up, opting to shift away from a one-day blowout model at Downsview Park to a “summer concert series” at The Exhibition’s sandy Echo Beach, the last of which was set to feature Edgefest alumni and a veritable powerhouse of nineties-nostalgia.
Judging by the attitude and attire of the average day-drunk patron it was obvious that a large contingent of the audience weren’t aching for a relived heyday of the Canadian Alt-rock renaissance (hyperbole much?) of the mid-to-late 90’s, but in fact had never stopped living it. Perhaps stagnating in a pre-911, pre-Bush/Obama/Harper, pre-warrantless eavesdropping, pre-ISIS and above all a pre-Beiber/Azalea world has its upsides.
Despite the pungent odors of liquor-stank, farts, cigarettes, and testosterone, tromping in the sand with hosers while the heroes of my pre-adolescence performed on stage was a surreal prospect. With a collection of acts each removed by 15 years from the apexes of their fame, the Edgefest of old was reborn under Toronto’s gloomy and aberrantly cool summer skies, and dang if it wasn’t a blast.
Can’t Hardly Hate – Eve 6
I had no idea Eve 6 were still a thing. The SoCal 3-piece took the stage like so many others have in the past, to the tantalizing sounds of Ennio Morricone’s The Good, The Bad and The Ugly soundtrack while vocalist Max Collins (looking significantly less ginger and way more tattooed) enticed the small audience. What followed was a half hour of generic, power-chord alt-pop with intermittent blips of relevance. To put them into perspective, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being Simple Plan and 10 being Third Eye Blind, Eve 6 would score a 4.
Despite this writer’s indifference towards them, they were generally well received. Collins’ pseudo-tai-chi poses and jovial demeanor at times managed to overcome the music, which was often devoid of anything substantive. “We love you more than your parents love you Toronto” he pandered. In fact, if I had a nickel for every time he said “Toronto” during the abbreviated half hour set, I’d certainly have had enough scratch to buy a set of earplugs. Perhaps that’s a tad bit cruel.
There was a glimpse of redemption though when the two-hit wonder busted out the ballad “Here’s To The Night” which then gave way to the tongue-twisting, anthemic chorus of “Inside Out” as a sea of iPhones rose from the crowd set to video mode.
Rain will fall…or will it
The skies were growing darker, the breeze more brisk. We were exposed, and it seemed the rain was inevitable.
I Mother Earth was a prominent Canadian hard rock act throughout the 90’s. They pulled the AC/DC move by seamlessly replacing one seemingly irreplaceable screaming vocalist with another, but then broke up a few years later. Their return to touring two years back was underpublicized but well received.
Guitarist Jagori Tanni, Canada’s answer (musically) to Dave Navarro, was a spastic, smiling fireball as they tore through “Summertime In The Void” which then veered into an elongated rhythmic breakdown. This set was going to be devastatingly short and they clearly intended disseminate as much fury as time would allow.
Tanni became a jumping metronome as they started into “One More Astronaut”. His brother Christian’s drum fills were electric shocks of precision. Vocalist Brian Byrne (perhaps the most amiable man with face tattoos I’ve encountered) was in the throes of his gravelly wails when something caught his eye. “Don’t fucking fight here. Stop that shit right now” he screamed as two meatheads tore into each other in the thick of the crowd. “You can get excited, but be fucking peaceful” he reiterated.
The meticulous speed riffage of “Rain Will Fall” had me looking towards the skies with wonder, but despite the forecasts and the foreboding, nature continued to relent. Jagori intermittently used his wah pedal as a weapon between Byrne’s fierce and elongated screams. And then they were off. Watching one of Canada’s premier rock acts of the 90’s get relegated to a five-song set was as curious as it was disappointing.
One could hypothesize that if in an alternate universe Weird Al moved to Canada, recorded original material and cloned himself three more times that Sloan would be the result. Their days of hobnobbing with Dave Grohl may be in the past, but this quartet has consistently thrown groovy tunes into the ether for over 23 years.
“Thank you for coming to twilight zone 90’s night” frontman and bassist Chris Murphy jested as they started into “If It Feels Good Do It”. The first few tracks were marred presumably by monitor feed issues. Their quad-choir harmonics were an uncharacteristically discordant muddle, and the guys were clearly perturbed.
Murphy reeled the audience back in encouraging us the chant “Sloooo-ooooan, Sloooo-ooooan” during “Everything You’ve Done Wrong”. Slowly and surely they (and their crew) began to pull it together. The early kinks had dissipated by the time they launched into the mellifluous melodrama of “The Other Man” which consummately collapsed into the two-minute punch-up of “The Good In Everyone” as a single crowdsurfer tumbled over the crowd.
Guitarist Patrick Pentland’s vocals during “Losing California” sounded confident and fierce, but apparently he thought otherwise. “I kinda fucked that one up, so the next time you come and see us that song is free” he quipped. They closed out the one-hour set with “Coax Me” and “Money City Maniacs” as countless intemperate, drunk troglodytes in the audience began to crunch in.
Faded, but far from forgotten
Gone are the days of Our Lady Peace selling platinum albums north and south of the 49th parallel. But to be fair, those days have passed for most acts anymore. Often unfairly touted as Canada’s post-grunge answer to the Smashing Pumpkins, OLP grew steadily in notoriety and influence until, like many others, Bob Rock got his humdrum hands on their 5th record and they soon faded from the international spotlight.
But despite hiatuses, a couple of toothless records, and lineup changes, when it came down to it, these guys had songs. They may not be what the were, but what they were was something we cherished in Canada. Faded, but far from forgotten. On a personal note, as a starry-eyed 12 year-old, they happened to be the first band I ever went to see live (thanks Mom).
By my count, this was set to be their 5th time playing Edgefest.
Wade MacNeil (of The Gallows and formerly of Alexisonfire) snagged a mic to proclaim he “lost his virginity listening to Our Lady Peace” before the lights dimmed.
They took the stage with a replacement for drummer Jeremy Taggart, who apparently left the band in June ending a 21-year run. They opted to open with “Heavyweight” which fell away to “One Man Army”. Leather-clad vocalist Raine Maida gallivanted around, erratically teasing the audience at the precipice of the stage with a megaphone in hand à la Scott Weiland. Guitarist Steve Mazur was a rush of emphatic Clapton-like thrusts, accentuating each note as if they were flowing through the whole of his body.
The first (and last) raindrops fell as Maida (whom it would appear just plumb forgot to age over the last decade) strapped on an acoustic guitar with a “Psychonomics” sticker affixed to it. My inner skeptic/cynic/critic died on the spot as they laid into the dynamic and seminal “Superman’s Dead”. Sure, Maida forgot the lyrics once or twice, but he made up for it with all of the “ee-yi-ee-yi-ee’s” and “now-a-who-a-oo’s” we could handle.
The trading off of nasal whines and falsetto wails encompass Maida’s hybrid vocal prowess, which was showcased during “Is Anybody Home”, as an all-too-eager audience chimed along. In times past, his live chops had occasionally failed and at other times assailed. Thankfully this performance fell into the latter category.
After “Angels/Losing/Sleep” (likely their best song of the past decade), they lunged into a heavy rendering of “Automatic Flowers” and my consciousness was transported into my 12 year-old brain, when life was less complicated, but more confusing; when I was less nihilistic and more indignant. I was in my basement bedroom, with band posters tacked to every square inch of wall space where Clumsy played on repeat for days on end. Needless to say, I was having a moment, which made it difficult to view the performance objectively.
Then a backing track of semi-coherent Ray Kurzweil futurist babble prefaced the gripping and sorrowful “In Repair” as strobes backlit the band and a rectangular array of LED’s illuminated the backdrop. A “most-pit” that opened up was of the softcore Christian-rock variety.
“I Mother Earth was the first band we ever opened for, and we’ve all been these incredible Sloan fans forever” Maida announced. This, it would seem, was a family affair. The lights then darkened again and a familiar minor-key piano melody captured the audience, who all went on to devotedly wave their arms and sing along to “Clumsy”.
They then dumped a new song on us: a contemptibly poppy number in the vein of Vampire Weekend. But Maida engaged the crowd by doing his best Eddie Vedder impression, climbing the stage-right rafters and crooning from above.
They reached back for some “Naveed” and managed to cunningly sneak an excerpt from “Life” into the bridge. Perhaps they were overwhelmed by their call for requests on Facebook earlier in the week and decided to start fusing songs.
In the most peculiar move of the evening, Maida let us in a secret. Apparently he had fallen for another woman, and we in the audience were to refrain from telling his wife. This led to an unnecessary cover of Lana Del Ray’s “Summertime Sadness” as fireworks masked Toronto’s skyline over the carnival at The Ex.
And then it was ”4AM”. Maida held his microphone stand out over the adoring crowd, letting us take over lead vocals. “You sound like a church choir” he fibbed. The once-ominous clouds had dissipated, stars were shining through the light pollution, and together we all celebrated the fact that “we’re all dumb and jaded”, as OLP vacated the stage.
It was time to shake the sand out of my shoes and call it a night.
In a mutating and burgeoning festival environment, which is undoubtedly encroaching on Edgefest’s terrain, one can only speculate how the festival will endure with the expansion of Toronto’s Riot Fest and the rumored Canadian half-sister to Chicago’s mega-fest Lollapalooza in 2015. Whether or not this is Edgefest’s point of diminishing returns or their swan song, at least they topped it off right: with a celebration of an inimitable class of Canadian rock acts that dominated their airwaves for more than a decade.