...and I still have 94 sleeps until Hillside!
Hillside Festival that is. I always feel like there shouldn't be a capital letter... so hillside. yep.
Though I attended once before, last summer was the first year I volunteered at Guelph's hillside festival and had the whole full-weekend/camping-in-volunteer-village/seeing-a-bajillion-shows/doin'-it-the-hillside-way experience. I loved it. Seriously super-loved it. It only took me about fifteen minutes before I declared "I am doing this again next year and every year forever!" or something to that effect...
I adored every minute of the weekend despite only having pre-hillside heard of about six of the bands (and missing two of them cuz we had to leave to go to a wedding!). We discovered countless new bands to swoon over (including the incredible Graveyard Train) and spent hours sitting on the lawn, tent-hopping, swimming and wandering the food and merch tents... it was fab.
So this year, when the hillside lineup for 2012 got announced and three separate people sent me "Holy crap have you seen the hillside line-up!?!" messages I was understandably anxious to check out the list of performers.
Holy Crap is right.
ALX, Arkells, Rich Aucoin, BADBADNOTGOOD, Bahamas, The Be Good
Tanyas, Belle Starr, Geoff Berner, Birds of Chicago, Bidiniband, Bombay
Bicycle Club, The Bright Light Social Hour, Bry Webb And The Providers,
Chic Gamine, Adam Cohen, Cold Specks, The Crooked Brothers, Current
Swell, The Deep Dark Woods, Doldrums, Dirty Mags, The Durants, Kathleen
Edwards, Elephant Revival, Elliott BROOD, Esther Grey, Christine
Fellows, Great Lake Swimmers, Alanna Gurr, Imaginary Cities, The
Jezabels, Joel Plaskett Emergency, Keys N Krates, The Magnificent 7s,
Maylee Todd, Memoryhouse, Mickey Hart Band, Minor Empire, New Country
Rehab, Ohbijou, Open Hearts Society, Sandro Perri, (POP Montreal
Presents: Canailles, Jennifer Castle, Mike O'Brien + Michelle Tompkins),
Joe Pug, Rival Boys, Lucy Wainwright Roche, Selina Martin Triplets,
Sagapool, The Slackadeliqs, StereoKid, The Strumbellas, Tālavya, Sidi
Touré, Chad VanGaalen, Valdy, Walk Off The Earth, The Wooden Sky, Young
Empires, Zeus.
yeah... Excited.
I am excited about Zeus (first time I will have seen them not as an opening band)
I am excited about Ohbijou (so beautiful!)
I am excited about The Wooden Sky (perfect hillside fare!)
I am excited about Great Lake Swimmers and Current Swell and the Arkells
But more than all that put together I am excited about Elliott BROOD.
Since moving back to Ontario a little over a year ago, I've seen them four times (more than in the previous four years all put together!) and its done nothing but make my love of them even more acute. Seriously, if I could only listen to one band for the rest of my life, I would be sad, but I would at least be mostly okay with it as long as that band were Elliot Brood. And EB live? even better.
Obviously I am excited to see them perform. And I am particularly excited to see them perform at hillside (because hillside performances are always magically even better than the best non-hillside performances). But more than that I am super excited to possibly see them two or three times in as many days (workshops! tents! mainstage!). That last realisation just hit me today, telling my roomate about it while doing dishes. And I had a weird experience, a tv/book/imaginary-world type experience: I suddenly got so excited that I felt momentarily nauseous. Seriously. It was weird. but also awesome.
I realize I have just irrevocably confirmed my status as an absolutely huge live-music dork, but honestly, if you haven't figured that out by now.... just wait until my hillside posts start rolling in...!
Only 94 sleeps until hillside!
Showing posts with label hillside. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hillside. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Top Five Performances of 2011 (#2)
2
Graveyard Train - The Drink, The Devil & The Dance - Hillside Festival, Guelph ON, July 22, 2011
I don't just love Graveyard Train, I am in love with Graveyard Train.
If you're someone who demands perfect pitch, heavenly voices and crisp clean sound, then this is not the band for you. If, however, the thought of a line of (albeit somewhat dirt-covered) grown-men choral-singing chain-gang-style ballads about werewolves, witches, and wagon trains gets your juices flowing... well then we've got something very important in common.
I had the pleasure of seeing Graveyard Train not once, but three times, three days in a row at this year's Hillside Festival in Guelph. As with many Hillside experiences we stumbled upon this band through a workshop session they were playing with another band (in this case Karkwa out of Montreal) and got to be part of a group-discovery that clearly had dozens of people simultaneously hooked.
I have a bit of a thing for odd instruments and in this category GT hits the jackpot. Playing everything from steel and slide guitar, to banjo, stand-up bass and chains (yes chains. played with a hammer) they run the gambit. Not only that but they dress and act the part, with dirty white tank tops, plaid shirts and suspenders their omnipresent uniform they look like they walked out of the Australian wild-west (complete with tipped hats and shoeless feet) and sound like they just emerged from a mine shaft.
Their epic choral singing stirs your soul in a way that makes you believe in ghosts, and drove us to see them not once, but three times over the course of the weekend. The only less-than-perfect thing about the experience was the knowledge that they were Australia-bound mere days later and that it will be a long time before I get to see them again!
If, however, you ever get the chance to see them live, take it. Then call and tell me where you are so I can go too!
Graveyard Train - The Drink, The Devil & The Dance - Hillside Festival, Guelph ON, July 22, 2011
I don't just love Graveyard Train, I am in love with Graveyard Train.
If you're someone who demands perfect pitch, heavenly voices and crisp clean sound, then this is not the band for you. If, however, the thought of a line of (albeit somewhat dirt-covered) grown-men choral-singing chain-gang-style ballads about werewolves, witches, and wagon trains gets your juices flowing... well then we've got something very important in common.
I had the pleasure of seeing Graveyard Train not once, but three times, three days in a row at this year's Hillside Festival in Guelph. As with many Hillside experiences we stumbled upon this band through a workshop session they were playing with another band (in this case Karkwa out of Montreal) and got to be part of a group-discovery that clearly had dozens of people simultaneously hooked.
I have a bit of a thing for odd instruments and in this category GT hits the jackpot. Playing everything from steel and slide guitar, to banjo, stand-up bass and chains (yes chains. played with a hammer) they run the gambit. Not only that but they dress and act the part, with dirty white tank tops, plaid shirts and suspenders their omnipresent uniform they look like they walked out of the Australian wild-west (complete with tipped hats and shoeless feet) and sound like they just emerged from a mine shaft.
Their epic choral singing stirs your soul in a way that makes you believe in ghosts, and drove us to see them not once, but three times over the course of the weekend. The only less-than-perfect thing about the experience was the knowledge that they were Australia-bound mere days later and that it will be a long time before I get to see them again!
If, however, you ever get the chance to see them live, take it. Then call and tell me where you are so I can go too!
Monday, July 25, 2011
Death Country, Chains, and Group Wonderment
I am in love.
Not with a person. That too normal, too plain. I am in love with six (or it it seven?) persons- though I suppose perhaps more accurately I am in love with their band...
I tend to get a little excited about music (understatement? yes. super-excited? more accurate). If you know me at all (or have, like, ever read this blog) you would not be at all surprised by that statement. You might, however, be surprised to know that, of my experiences of falling in love with bands, the sudden, immediate, 'holy crap who the hell is this?' ones are surprisingly few. Now I suppose this makes sense as you don't often go to see a band live unless you've at least hear of them, but the magic of music festivals lies exactly in creating such opportunities for discovery and love-falling-in. In seeing bands perform whom you've never heard of and would otherwise have never been exposed to. I've written before about the first time I saw Arcade Fire, the 'ummmmm who is this? because they kind of freakin rock... ' vibe and how that was the first and only time I've ever seen that happen to a whole field-full of people at exactly the same time... well that story must now be amended, for I have once again been privileged to be a part of a room-full (or in this case tent-full) of people simultaneously falling in love with a band. And that band is Graveyard Train.
They classify themselves as 'horror-country' (strikingly similar to the self-moniker of 'death-country' used by one of my all-time favourites Elliot Brood) and are a crazy-awesome mix of a tumble-weed-covered-frontier-town-saloon crossed with chain-gang-running-from-a-pack-of-zombies. K and I spent the weekend discussing the awesomeness of their man-choir voices and their amazing choice of instruments (steel guitar, slide guitar, banjo, stand-up bass and chains. yes chains. played with a hammer.) and going to see them as many times as possible (three times in three days was almost not enough!) but the part that stands out most for me was the first twenty seconds of the first song I ever heard them play.
At Hillside there are main-stage and side-stage performances, but there are also workshops where bands who have never met, and often never even heard of each other, get together and jam. The regular performances are usually pretty durn awesome, but the jam sessions are where the unexpected, unprecedented, and totally magical become common place. We had just gone to see Karkwa who were amaaaazing (and will soon have their whole own blogpost I'm sure...) and they were playing a workshop later on that evening in one of the tents, so we headed on over. It turned out they were going to be jamming with a band from Australia (Australian meets Quebequois was to be a theme for the weekend) who looked like they had just stepped off of a wagon train. I was already pretty excited when I saw the banjo and the steel guitar, but nothing could have prepared me for the music...
They came on stage. They picked up their instruments ("Is that guy holding a chain!?!" "Which guy?" "The one in the dirty tank-top, suspenders, and work-pant cut-offs..."). The lead singer tipped his hat. They started singing. Holy. Shit.
We were hit by the wall of sound of five men (manly men. dirty men. men men) stretched out in a line across the stage, belting out harmonies the likes of which have not seen the light of day since 1879. We stood stunned. The whole tent stood stunned. There was a stunned silence, literally. (Well not quite literally as there was the music... but other than the music there was a stunned silence.) Eight seconds, nine seconds... I turned to K, she was looking back at me; "Who the fuck are these guys!?!" We looked around. Everyone looked around. We were all turning to the side and saying the exact same thing...
Twelve seconds... a murmur sweeps the tent...
Fifteen seconds... everyone's head starts to move up and down. shoulders shrugging in rhythm...
Eighteen seconds... feet tapping, hands clapping...
Twenty seconds... I am in love.
It got even better as the song went on. It got even better with each song. Karkwa joined in and it got even better and better. After they were finished I speed-walked to the merch tent and straight up to the table, picked up their CD and handed it to the girl behind the counter: "I need this one." I was sad when it was over, but super excited that I would get to watch them again the next day, and again the day after that... Even more excited when the same experience was repeated two more times, with the slight modification of a growing crowd at the front of those of us already-converted, and a diminishing crowd of first-timers sitting in-behind, wondering at why we were all so excited (until they experienced their own first-twenty-seconds and joined the ranks of the initiated).
Its a pretty magical thing to be a part of an amazing concert and even more so one where so many people are seeing a band for the first time and falling in love with them. Scratch that, its DAMN FINE. It a damn fine thing to have such a wonderful group experience- and to get to have it again and again three days in a row.
Thank you Hillside. Thank you Graveyard Train. Thank you tent-people with whom I got to share this! Now disperse and spread the word... music is a wonderful thing.
Not with a person. That too normal, too plain. I am in love with six (or it it seven?) persons- though I suppose perhaps more accurately I am in love with their band...
I tend to get a little excited about music (understatement? yes. super-excited? more accurate). If you know me at all (or have, like, ever read this blog) you would not be at all surprised by that statement. You might, however, be surprised to know that, of my experiences of falling in love with bands, the sudden, immediate, 'holy crap who the hell is this?' ones are surprisingly few. Now I suppose this makes sense as you don't often go to see a band live unless you've at least hear of them, but the magic of music festivals lies exactly in creating such opportunities for discovery and love-falling-in. In seeing bands perform whom you've never heard of and would otherwise have never been exposed to. I've written before about the first time I saw Arcade Fire, the 'ummmmm who is this? because they kind of freakin rock... ' vibe and how that was the first and only time I've ever seen that happen to a whole field-full of people at exactly the same time... well that story must now be amended, for I have once again been privileged to be a part of a room-full (or in this case tent-full) of people simultaneously falling in love with a band. And that band is Graveyard Train.
They classify themselves as 'horror-country' (strikingly similar to the self-moniker of 'death-country' used by one of my all-time favourites Elliot Brood) and are a crazy-awesome mix of a tumble-weed-covered-frontier-town-saloon crossed with chain-gang-running-from-a-pack-of-zombies. K and I spent the weekend discussing the awesomeness of their man-choir voices and their amazing choice of instruments (steel guitar, slide guitar, banjo, stand-up bass and chains. yes chains. played with a hammer.) and going to see them as many times as possible (three times in three days was almost not enough!) but the part that stands out most for me was the first twenty seconds of the first song I ever heard them play.
At Hillside there are main-stage and side-stage performances, but there are also workshops where bands who have never met, and often never even heard of each other, get together and jam. The regular performances are usually pretty durn awesome, but the jam sessions are where the unexpected, unprecedented, and totally magical become common place. We had just gone to see Karkwa who were amaaaazing (and will soon have their whole own blogpost I'm sure...) and they were playing a workshop later on that evening in one of the tents, so we headed on over. It turned out they were going to be jamming with a band from Australia (Australian meets Quebequois was to be a theme for the weekend) who looked like they had just stepped off of a wagon train. I was already pretty excited when I saw the banjo and the steel guitar, but nothing could have prepared me for the music...
They came on stage. They picked up their instruments ("Is that guy holding a chain!?!" "Which guy?" "The one in the dirty tank-top, suspenders, and work-pant cut-offs..."). The lead singer tipped his hat. They started singing. Holy. Shit.
We were hit by the wall of sound of five men (manly men. dirty men. men men) stretched out in a line across the stage, belting out harmonies the likes of which have not seen the light of day since 1879. We stood stunned. The whole tent stood stunned. There was a stunned silence, literally. (Well not quite literally as there was the music... but other than the music there was a stunned silence.) Eight seconds, nine seconds... I turned to K, she was looking back at me; "Who the fuck are these guys!?!" We looked around. Everyone looked around. We were all turning to the side and saying the exact same thing...
Twelve seconds... a murmur sweeps the tent...
Fifteen seconds... everyone's head starts to move up and down. shoulders shrugging in rhythm...
Eighteen seconds... feet tapping, hands clapping...
Twenty seconds... I am in love.
It got even better as the song went on. It got even better with each song. Karkwa joined in and it got even better and better. After they were finished I speed-walked to the merch tent and straight up to the table, picked up their CD and handed it to the girl behind the counter: "I need this one." I was sad when it was over, but super excited that I would get to watch them again the next day, and again the day after that... Even more excited when the same experience was repeated two more times, with the slight modification of a growing crowd at the front of those of us already-converted, and a diminishing crowd of first-timers sitting in-behind, wondering at why we were all so excited (until they experienced their own first-twenty-seconds and joined the ranks of the initiated).
Its a pretty magical thing to be a part of an amazing concert and even more so one where so many people are seeing a band for the first time and falling in love with them. Scratch that, its DAMN FINE. It a damn fine thing to have such a wonderful group experience- and to get to have it again and again three days in a row.
Thank you Hillside. Thank you Graveyard Train. Thank you tent-people with whom I got to share this! Now disperse and spread the word... music is a wonderful thing.
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