Weakerthans, Hey Rosetta! Win Verge Awards

09/25/08 11:15am

by Steve McLean (CHARTattack)

The Weakerthans and Hey Rosetta! are both $25,000 richer after winning the two prizes up for grabs at the inaugural Verge Music Awards ceremony on Wednesday night.

The Weakerthans were named artist of the year, while Hey Rosetta!'s Into Your Lungs (And Around In Your Heart And On Through Your Blood) was chosen as best album. More than 45,000 Canadians voted on XM Canada's website for two months to decide the winners in each category. The Weakerthans were represented by Jason Tait, while Hey Rosetta!'s Tim Baker was on hand to accept the honour for his St. John's, Nfld. bandmates.

There were bigger turnouts by the four bands who performed. XM Canada broadcasted the show live on The Verge (channel 52 of its satellite radio service), with Kelowna Vincent hosting and introducing the bands.

The unfortunately named Fancy Girls Market, from MuchMusic's disBand reality show, were asked to play one song. They didn't make a good impression when lead singer Keith Burkett (who a friend referred to as "the ugliest chick I have ever seen") demanded that people come to the front of the stage and acted like a much bigger rock star than he is. The band's nu-metal was as bad as their moniker, so I can only hope that they disband soon.

Music industry survivors milled about Tattoo Rock Parlour as Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains set up for their time in the spotlight. The band weren't as bad as some people who had previously seen them told me they thought they were, but it was pretty run-of-the-mill, loud indie rock. But since I wasn't heartbroken by Death From Above 1979's demise, Grainger's new project wasn't a letdown.

A song that opened like The Jesus And Mary Chain's "Just Like Honey" unfortunately wasn't, and it ended with Grainger playing a flying V guitar and holding it beside his face while he did some sort of operatic yodelling thing.

The Stills were up next and their set was more melodic and musically broad than their predecessors. While it was more impressive, having an industry-related audience on hand instead of fans meant that, like with Grainger, the response was just mildly enthusiastic.

Edwin wasn't bartending, but Billy Talent's Ben Kowalewicz, The Waking Eyes, Lindy, Greig Nori, The Mahones' Finny McConnell, Sunparlour Players' Andrew Penner and members of a few other bands were taking things in, as was a Matt Mays lookalike and several Kevin Drew wannabes.

The real Drew took the stage with Broken Social Scene as a 10-piece band, but the lineup fluctuated throughout the evening, and horn sections moved in and out. Julie Penner was in the crowd, but there was apparently no need for violin in Wednesday's performance, so she stayed there. The band also played without a female vocalist, possibly because their newest tourmate, Land Of Talk's Liz Powell, just lost her voice.

Broken Social Scene opened their set with "Cause=Time" from 2002's You Forgot It In People. Brendan Canning later stepped to the front for "Hit The Wall," which he said was rejected as the new Hockey Night In Canada theme, and "Churches Under The Stairs," two fine songs from his Something For All Of Us... album. Towards the end of the set, the band were joined by friend and recent Arts & Crafts signee Gentleman Reg, who helped them perform Canning's "Love Is New."

The set also included "F-ked Up Kid" and "Farewell To The Pressure Kids" from Drew's Spirit If... album and "Fire Eye'd Boy" from Broken Social Scene's 2005 self-titled album.

If you needed more evidence that this wasn't a fan-driven event, seeing the audience thin out during Broken Social Scene's set provided it. I quite like the collective live when they don't get too jammy, which they did on the last song, but I still can't get into their albums.

Things ran behind schedule all night, which I suppose is to be expected for a first-time show, but the free beer tickets consistently supplied by the event's gracious publicity team helped ease the monotony of waiting around — even if my choices were limited to Canadian and Coors Light.