What a day of music! Started at 6:00 at the main festival grounds for The Stills from Montreal. I’ve only recently gotten into these guys, but really enjoyed their showing here.
Then we trekked across town to York Street for The Proclaimers who were great, but really I only know 2 songs of theirs, and they played them – so cool, I guess. The big blowout performance of the day for me goes to Arrested Development. What a blast – York Street was packed with people dancing their brains out. This show made all the running around totally worth it! I had a permanent smile on the whole show – the dancing, the singing, the rapping, the beats and the band, and what a party vibe it was!
Then we hiked back over to Lebreton for some Jackson Browne, and I scooted over to the Subway (you’ll always be The River Stage to me) Stage for a quick look at Steve Earle. Both shows were great from what I saw, but really nothing at this point for me could even hold a candle to what had happened at York Street earlier.
That is until I hit Maverick’s at midnight for Peter Murphy! I never really knew anything about this guy – other than he was with BauHaus, and had a track on the Pump Up The Volume (great movie!) soundtrack. After a late start, due to some issues with the sound system which forced them to scale back the show a bit, Peter took the stage and had the audience wrapped around his finger for the hour and a half show. That voice! That sound! The band was solid, and Peter’s vocal power and stage presence was just incredible. I’m so glad to have gotten a chance to see him at such an intimate space. Thanks to my good friend Jordan for the recommendation!
Only missed one show that I really wanted to see, DeVotchKa. The timing just didn’t work out – still, not bad for the amount of running around we did.
Tonight will be pretty light in terms of schedule – Hey Rosetta! at 7pm and then one of the acts I’ve most been looking forward to, Matisyahu at 9:30! I actually won two free tickets from Matis for tonight (I’m still blown away by the direct message from him over twitter!) – I’m so looking forward to this – I think I’m going to have to get right down front for a change!
Below is a video of Arrested Development performing their hit Mr. Wendall. Sorry for the shakey camera – hey, you try taking video on a still camera with no image stabilization and a party as rockin’ as this going on all around you!