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Concert reviews Music

Shows that rocked Toronto last week

BACKSTREET BOYS at the Molson Amphitheatre, Wednesday, August 7. Rating: NNN The Backstreet Boys marched out high-kneed and soldier-like for opener The Call, kicking off a nostalgic one hour and 40 minutes of boybandom. But “boy band” is a misnomer. Nick, Brian, AJ, Kevin and Howie are men now, and they’re not really a band either. They’re singers, and sing live they did, through tight dance routines and greatest hits off their first four albums and the better songs on their eighth and current release. Occasionally it was pitchy, but the troupe – Brian and AJ especially – was solid.

While the ladies still go bananas for Nick, AJ is the show master now. His deep rasp was ever-present alongside his big personality. “It’s a good thing I’m married,” he said, “cuz I’d be getting into so much trouble in Toronto.” Despite the innuendo, the boys kept their clothes on. Nick shrugged his overshirt once or twice to reveal all of one tattooed shoulder.

The real missed opportunity was that they performed Quit Playing Games (With My Heart) acoustically (one of a few songs where the boys busted out instruments). Other than that, there were no momentum dips. The third act was their best, barrelling toward the end with The One, In A World Like This, I Want It That Way and Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) – complete with signature zombie moves.

Julia LeConte


AT THE GATES at the Phoenix, Friday, August 9. Rating: NNNN “Toronto!” Tomas Lindberg yells, pleasant and weirdly bro-y underneath a mesh-back cap. “Do you like death metal?”

Cheers, applause, horns, hoots.

“That’s good. But we in At the Gates, we don’t like death metal.”

Pregnant silence for, like, one-half of one second.

“WE FUCKING LOOOOOOOOVE DEATH METAL!”

The At the Gates show was amazing. As it was in 2008, when they reunited the first time, when they played almost exactly the same set list. They have one amazing record, 1995’s Slaughter Of The Soul, a record that merged the aggressiveness of doom metal with the richly interlaced, melodic riffing of great NWOBHM. Basically, seeing At the Gates reunited every five years is a reason to hear all those tunes from Slaughter: Need, World Of Lies, Suicide Nation, the title track, Nausea, Blinded By Fear.

The band is energetic, robotically tight and exhibits a sense of warm fellow feeling that’s legit earnest, not the toadying “Hey guys we love you!” shtick of a band like Skeletonwitch. If you’ve never seen them, you should.

John Semley


WIZ KHALIFA, A$AP ROCKY, B.O.B and others at the Molson Amphitheatre, Saturday, August 10. Rating: NNN

A$AP Rocky executed his set with non-stop, breathless energy – charming, but not always effective when working with 16-bar poems.

There were good moments, like a performance of One Train with Joey Bada$$. But slower songs like Phoenix or Suddenly would have been a welcome change of pace. And the constant toing and froing of his collective, A$AP Mob, might’ve been more effective if reserved for the finale.

Rocky could learn about crafting a set list from his top-billed tour mate, Wiz Khalifa, whose onstage charisma is also second to none. He lithely slithered about the stage, swanned around with the mic stand, arched his back under the spotlight and positively bounced around on those stilts of his. He’s unselfconsciously diva-like – refreshing for the macho boys’ club of a rap tour like this one.

The Weeknd surprised his hometown by showing up for Remember You, his duet with Khalifa, and the rest of Khalifa’s set – Work Hard Play Hard, On My Level, Up – was just as entertaining. He pushed the 11 pm curfew to the max, stretching his set to 1.5 hours. But that’s the thing about Wiz – he makes work-hard look play-hard. Effortless.

Julia LeConte


ALL CAPS! ISLAND FESTIVAL at Artscape Gibraltar Point, Saturday and Sunday, August 10 and 11. Rating: NNNN

It was a bittersweet ending to ALL CAPS! Toronto’s premiere music champions, Wavelength, were rewarded with a solid crowd, good vibes and peaceful weather, making the event’s swan song its most successful incarnation.

This year, the all-ages mandate stretched to its programming: Saturday started with a performance by spirited pop-punk teens Unfinished Business and later continued with bizZarh, another pair of teen girls who impressed the crowd with their spaced-out mix of R&B and hip-hop. Ev ree wuhn’s jazzy electro-soul, Hooded Fang’s upbeat garage-surf and Most People’s tropical-tinged psych-rock, meanwhile, were perfectly suited to the outdoor stage. The night was headlined by Brooklynites the Blow, whose DIY electro straddled the line between pop music and performance art.

Sunday started on the beach, where a special second stage was constructed. Eons played gentle, relaxing folk music that perfectly suited the waves and sand. Veteran power trio Magneta Lane and Toronto shoegazers Beliefs later amped the crowd back up, priming them for local blues-rockers CATL. Rich Aucoin’s celebratory, life-affirming spectacle was given an extra dose of gravitas as the fest’s last-ever act. Letting his live band hold down the stage, Aucoin dove into the audience, instigated a lot of crowd-surfing and finished performing under a giant parachute that covered everyone in attendance while fireworks erupted from the beach.

Richard Trapunski

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