I Believe In Toronto

09/08/08 1:34pm

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

I began my weekend by heading out to the Junction (the area of Toronto on Dundas St. W. between Keele Street and High Park) for its annual street festival. I had a huge bowl of noodles at The Friendly Thai and then went over to the main stage to watch Justin Rutledge play.

Rutledge is Junction born and raised and brought up amusing anecdotes about the area while he played a set divided equally between the three albums he's released. I love everything this guy is done, but I wasn't quite as enthusiastic about his performance as the ladies behind me, who kept screaming "Justin, we love you!" at the top of their lungs.

At one point, a male fan broke through the security barrier and began jumping around in the space in front of the stage. Rutledge's set was great, but these antics combined with some I recently witnessed at Cuff The Duke show make me wonder if this is part of some kind of strange new phenomenon of alt.country fans unexpectedly going berzerk at shows. Maybe there's something in the water.

On Saturday, it was off to Sneaky Dee's to see Japanther after I'd eaten what was probably an unhealthy (ironically enough) amount of soy products at the Vegetarian Food Fair at Harbourfront. But first I watched Mississauga, Ont.'s Dance Electric, who blew me away. I haven't seen a more energetic punk band in a while. Vocalist Theo screamed his vocal chords until they should have been raw, guitarist NJ contorted himself all over the place, bassist Jamie jumped around so much he was practically a leapfrog, and drummer Tori has some serious chops. See this band.

Romo Roto, a duo who play two floor toms and two snares (trading off at incredibly rapid speed between them), sometimes accompanied by strange noodlings coming out of a tape recorder, were next. I guess this was appropriate, since Japanther are a duo who do the same thing but with bass, drums and punk rock playing out of a stereo. While I was seriously impressed by Romo Roto's drumming skills (they're no Aa, mind you), I grew pretty tired of the music quite quickly.

Japanther came on next and turned the entire room into a sweatfest within seconds. By the end of their gig, nearly 20 people had jumped on stage to dance along and some were accidentally falling out of their clothes. (Oops.) That drummer/singer Ian Vanek kept saying "I believe in Toronto" into his telephone microphone only made people get crazier. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, and was one that made me glad to have finally moved to the city.

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