HUNX AND HIS PUNX at the Hard Luck Bar, Thursday, August 22. Rating: NNN
As if the musky ventilation at Hard Luck Bar wasn’t reason enough, Hunx and His Punx main man Seth Bogart opened Thursday’s show by threatening to walk if at least 10 people didn’t immediately remove their shirts. One person obliged, and the grinning California trash rocker sheepishly admitted his bluff had been called and launched into a set heavy on punchy cuts from their hardcore-leaning Street Punk album. The moment foreshadowed a few nagging disconnects throughout the 30-minute show – between the sound guy and the loose-sounding foursome, and between the audience and a raspy but peppy Bogart.
Dressed in a black Peggy Noland jumpsuit covered in rock band logos, he bounced, bitched and stripped his way through the set, occasionally passing the mic to bassist Shannon Shaw, whose throaty wail was particularly convincing on the incendiary Don’t Call Me Fabulous. By the too-quick-to-arrive end, Bogart was clad in blue bikini briefs and had inspired most of the crowd to mosh. They were all still clothed, though at least one dude in the front apparently whipped out his dick.
Kevin Ritchie
WORLD DOMINATION 4 at the Opera House, Friday and Saturday, August 24 and 25. Rating: NNN
A rap battle hangs on every syllable. So it was unfortunate that on the second night of World Domination 4, presented by Toronto’s premiere rap battle league, King of the Dot, there were sound issues. While spectators on the floor were attentive and respectful, those loitering around the bar weren’t as quiet as they had been on night one. The mics were also inconsistently audible, so each match required a test drive before the first of three rounds.
Luckily, the 18 day-two competitors brought their A game (as had the 16 battlers on day one), which made it worth the ear strain. Over the course of the weekend, Charron vs DNA, Arsonal vs Dizaster and Young Gattas vs Bonnie Godiva (KOTD’s first female battle) were among the most memorable, and the serious level of lyrical talent mostly balanced out the tournament’s cheesier WWE-like aspects.
The finale pitted the bravado and delivery of Nova Scotia’s Pat Stay against the less showy but equally inspired wordplay of defending champ Arcane from Hamilton. His lines like “Sloppy bars, this ain’t Patrick’s day/Sloppy bars, this Saint Patrick’s Day” couldn’t sway the judges, who ultimately crowned Stay the new king.
Julia LeConte
MELANIE BRULÉE at the Cameron House, Sunday, August 25. Rating: NNN
At the final performance of her month-long Cameron House residency, Toronto-based Melanie Brulée wowed the audience with her multiple stage personas. Clad in a black dress and cowboy boots, she transformed from sultry pop star to classic cabaret singer, covering Edith Piaf’s La Vie En Rose with the French diva’s signature rapid vibrato and melodrama. Her two-hour set contained plenty of original songs as well, mostly folk ditties touching on archetypical country music themes: sucky ex-boyfriends, old flames, etc, rounded out with quirky adaptations like a Piaf-style take on Britney Spears’s Toxic and a Nancy Sinatra-channelling rendition of Bang Bang (He Shot Me Down).
Brulée plans to travel to Paris for a two-month research project that will result in her first all-French album. On Sunday she previewed what that album might sound like. Passionate and raw, her voice sounds best in cabaret’s native tongue.
Samantha Edwards
THE REPLACEMENTS with IGGY & THE STOOGES as part of RIOT FEST at Fort York Garrison Common, Sunday, August 25. Rating: NNNN
Twenty-two years since their last live performance, the Replacements founding singer/guitarist Paul Westerberg and bassist Tommy Stinson reunited at the second Toronto edition of Riot Fest. The Replacements have always stood in opposition to the self-serious pomp that lionizes underground heroes as rock stars decades after their heyday. Regardless, there was an unmistakable air of occasion as foreign media crowded the photo pit and fans held their breath.
The band wryly undercut it immediately, tearing into a typically loud and sloppy set, still playing the same surly self-saboteurs from the Minneapolis basement punk scene. Westerberg forgot whole verses to favourites like I Will Dare, merged their songs with piss-take covers and even took requests, gloriously fumbling through gender-bending love ballad Androgynous. When they launched into classics like Bastards Of Young, audience members belted out choruses with collective all-in-this-together satisfaction. But Westerberg was happier to troll the adoring crowd, donning a Habs jersey to lead his band through an encore version of the Broadway show tune Everything’s Coming Up Roses and IOU – a song inspired by Iggy & the Stooges, who’d performed just before.
Iggy was as spry as ever, bouncing around the stage and into the crowd, howling like a banshee and inviting audience members to “fucking dance with the Stooges.” If not for the reunion, they surely would have grabbed the most attention.
Richard Trapunski
