I Saw Everyone But Bruce Peninsula At The Bruce Peninsula Show

Instead of subjecting myself to Wolf Parade on Saturday night (I love them on record, but like Jen White I think they're horrendous live), I opted to head to the Whippersnapper Gallery on College West for the Bruce Peninsula show.

Things started with One Heart Many Hands (real name Steve Hesselink) who's the drummer for We're Marching On. As One Heart Many Hands, he's literally a one-man band. He loops guitar parts and slams away on his drums. While I thought he was amazing at first, by three or four tracks in it was clear his songs all sounded the same. He was interesting to watch (he's an excellent drummer and not once did he make a mistake) and he's only put an EP out so far, so hopefully his sound will develop. But overall, his sound is a little too homogenous right now.

Upon arriving at the show, people were whispering about a "secret guest" who had been added to the bill. But I know the promoter through a friend, so I knew it was Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains. Like One Heart Many Hands, I thought they were interesting to watch, but every song (save one number with a disco beat which vaguely recalled Grainger's old band Death From Above) sounded the same. The Whippersnapper sound was also unforgiving. You could barely hear Grainger's vocals and his guitar was miced way too high. He muttered "Thank you for tolerating us" to a somewhat perplexed audience at the end before leaving the stage.

I was, however, very impressed with The Got To Get Got. The 13-piece Vancouver/Halifax collective's indie pop sounds got the Whippersnapper crowd bouncing around and they even got the crowd participating in one of their songs. If I hadn't had to rush out at the end of their set, I would have bought some of their music.

I unfortunately did not see the headliners, as living in the suburbs fucked with my plans yet again. The last train to Oakville is at 12:43 a.m. and by 12:10 a.m. Bruce Peninsula hadn't yet gone on, so I left. There is a 1:30 a.m. bus, but if you take it there are no city buses running in Oakville when the GO bus gets in at 2:30 am.. Not wanting to spend money on a cab or spend over an hour walking home at such a late hour, I left to get the 12:43 train. Turns out I should have just stayed, because I missed the train by a minute and had to take the bus anyway. Lame. I'll be glad to move at the end of the month.