FESTIVAL MUSIC HOUSE at Adelaide Music Hall, Monday, September 9.
TIFF is such a Toronto entertainment industry monolith that it even spreads to the music scene. Monday was the second night of Festival Music House at Adelaide Music Hall, an invite-only event organized by Arts & Crafts designed to showcase Canadian musicians for the glut of producers, directors, music supervisors and other industry hobnobbers in town for the film fest.
The intentions are solid – to help a perhaps-struggling indie band land a prime placement in a movie or on TV. But to a regular show-goer, it had an uncanny Invasion of the Body Snatchers air to it. Audience members were a bit more put-together, artists were a bit more nervous, the bar was a lot more open and even the venue seemed more photogenic.
Those are all the right ingredients for a successful TIFF party, but it wasn’t the most conducive to a rock show. July Talk tried to recreate their regular ritual: guitarist Peter Dreimanis repeatedly motioned for the audience to move closer before admitting mock-defeat. “Maybe you’re all too cool to get rowdy,” he said. But it didn’t stop co-singer Leah Fay from getting rowdy (in the most bizarre possible way), feeding the front rows sips from her juice box (?), pouring water over herself and resting her high-heel shoe on her head.
Dragonette’s electro-pop fit the smoke machines and dramatic lighting atmosphere of the room, but they too had trouble getting the audience to dance, let alone participate in a planned singalong.
Given the conditions, Rich Aucoin seemed like he had his work cut out for him. The Halifax party-starter’s whole live show hinges on coaxing audiences to let their guard down and lose themselves to the we’re-all-in-this-together YOLOisms of childhood. But if anyone could do it in a room full of blazer/no-tie live-tweeters, it was Rich.
Maybe it was the free vodkas and Mill Street Organic, or maybe it was earlier performer/life affirmer Maylee Todd’s unbridled glee from within (and on top of) the crowd, but by the end of the show everyone was raising their arms to the sky, jumping up and down, throwing caution and outfits to the wind. Aucoin even brought along his trademark parachute and a second “satellite parachute” for the VIP balcony.
Someone get this guy an iPod commercial.
