The Arcade Fire Win Two CASBY Awards

Apparently The Arcade Fire would rather rehearse for a tour with U2 than turn up to receive a couple of awards from a Toronto radio station.

The Montreal phenomenon were named favourite new artist and last year's Funeral release was chosen favourite new album at the annual CASBY (Canadian Artists Selected By You) Awards presented by 102.1 The Edge, North By Northeast and Molson Canadian at Toronto's Kool Haus on Wednesday night. The Arcade Fire unfortunately weren't able to attend the two-and-a-half-hour event, which was as much a concert and party as it was an awards show.

Boy, who were nattily attired in new wave and mod gear, were on hand to pick up the favourite new indie release award and also performed "Up In This Town" and "People Come On." Bedouin Soundclash's "When The Night Feels My Song" was named favourite new song, and the group performed the ubiquitous tune along with the punky reggae number, "Shelter."

In theory,Tom Green was the host of the show. In reality, he came on stage from time to time to rap with his posse over some very pedestrian beats. Green's new rap album, Prepare For Impact, will be released on December 6, so at least he got some advance promotion in with the CASBY gig. As well as introducing some of the bands, the bearded Green helped toss dozens of teddy bears and loaves of bread into the crowd while swearing like a sailor with Tourette's Syndrome.

Speaking of theories, Theory Of A Deadman were able to provoke hippie dances from a few women in the crowd with their acoustic rock ballad "No Surprise" and the more upbeat and melodic "Santa Monica." The Waking Eyes did their best to keep the largely inebriated crowd awake with their renditions of "Watch Your Money" and "On A Train."

The crowd was surprisingly subdued for Metric's performance of their current single/video "Monster Hospital," but Emily Haines and the boys kicked their fans into high gear with a raucous version of "Dead Disco." The Trews played two fine meat-and-potatoes, blue collar rock songs, "So She's Leaving" and "Yearning," and seemed quite happy with their performance when they bellied up to the bar afterwards.

Chart favourites Sloan performed "All Used Up," with Patrick Pentland singing and playing a Flying V guitar. Chris Murphy then went into the crowd and brought back a young boy named Matty on to the stage. Though wearing a pair of Mission Of Burma-sized headphones to block out the excessive volume of the venue, the youngster danced enthusiastically to "G Turns To D."

Hot Hot Heat capped off the night as headliners and inexplicably played "Goodnight Goodnight" first. The Vancouver band then ventured into "Middle Of Nowhere" before closing off the evening's festivities with "You Owe Me An IOU," which will be their next single and video in the new year.

The CASBY Awards were launched by radio station CFNY-FM in 1981 as an alternative to the Juno Awards and were originally called the U-Knows. This year's winners were chosen by 13,600 votes submitted by fans.