VFest Toronto Day One

Toronto Island

Toronto, ON

on Sep 6 2008

Jen White (CHARTattack)

09/08/2008 4:46pm

There are a few steadfast indications that it's the end of summer in Toronto: university kids are running rampant downtown, the streets are abuzz with film nerds for the Toronto International Film Festival and the Virgin Festival invades Toronto Island for two days.

After a horrendous ferry ride over (media had access to a VIP ferry, but it was smaller and slower than the regular ferries, and the damned thing spun in a circle for half-an-hour in the middle of the harbour), I caught a bit of The Airborne Toxic Event's set on the Virgin Mobile Stage. The Californian quintet interestingly enough took their name from the Don DeLillo novel, White Noise, but sadly their sound wasn't as interesting. They were your typical boring rock, and sported all black and edgy haircuts. But the violins were a nice touch.

Things seemed to be running smoothly right from the get-go, as Toronto's Constantines started their set on the main stage five minutes early. The crowd was pretty hyped for the early day set, and although two of the five Cons are now living in Montreal, they were awesome and kept it tight. Highlights included "Nighttime Anytime (It's Alright)" from Shine A Light and Kensington Heights' "Hard Feelings," which frontman Bry Webb dedicated to his wife, who happened to be sitting next to me on that wretched ferry ride and kept me reasonably calm considering my fear of boats.

I headed to the TD Music Stage on Centre Island to check out Spiritualized. This marked the first occasion that I faced my nemesis for the next two days: the small (and only open) bridge that connected Toronto Island, which housed the main stage and the Bacardi B-Live DJ tent, and Centre Island, which hosted the TD Stage and the emerging artist Oh Henry! Stage. The narrow bridge caused a total bottleneck effect when too many people tried to pass at once (which happened often), and always ate up a bunch of time.

But I really didn't need to rush that much, since J. Spaceman and company were about a half-hour late. While the audience seemed a little miffed, the anger melted away soon after Spiritualized took the stage. By the time the Spaceman started the second song, the crowd was totally captivated. The band had an interesting set-up, with Spaceman and guitarist Doggen at opposite ends of the stage facing each other, seemingly creating a space in the middle of the stage for the music to grow. A pair of gospel singers brought a great vibe to "Shine A Light." I left as new single "Soul On Fire" from Songs In A&E was playing.

Back at the main stage, current New York indie darlings MGMT drew a large crowd. The duo of Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser was fleshed out by a full band. I thought VanWyngarden's vocals were really whiney at first, but they blended well with the backing vocals as the set progressed. Everyone bobbed around happily during the shiny (and my current personal fave) "Time To Pretend" and "Electric Feel" from last year's Oracular Spectacular. I was pretty amused with drummer Will Berman, who looked comical with his Russell Brand haircut as he banged away on the skins with huge mallets.

Next up were The Fratellis at the TD stage. The Glasgow, Scotland trio were filled out with two extra touring members and played their brand of working-class Scot rock complete with Jon Fratelli's whiskey-tinged vocals. There was a much bigger crowd present for the iPod commercial band than for Spiritualized, and drummer Mince Fratelli really kept the energy level high.

Back on the main stage, Against Me! didn't draw as large of a crowd as MGMT, but everyone there was pretty into their awesome pop-punk. They had great energy and were just plain fun, and ended the set with my favourite song, "Thrash Unreal."

I was worried about getting back over to the TD stage on time for Wintersleep, but lucked out since everything had been pushed back by the late Spiritualized set earlier in the day. It was funny because the poor guys had to tune their own instruments and, when frontman Paul Murphy broke a string during "Oblivion," I had no idea how it was going to get fixed. They also had a bit of a sound glitch when he switched guitars for their hit single, "Weighty Ghost."

"I never thought I'd be so happy to hear the sound of my acoustic guitar," Murphy commented.

This was only a tidbit of the funny banter that went on throughout their tight set, including jabs at one concert-goer in the front row who kept screaming the same song request over and over at a visibly annoyed Murphy. (I don't think they ever played it, which makes it that much funnier.) It was just starting to get dark at this point, and the lights really added to the overall atmosphere. Wintersleep also played a new song called "Encyclopedia."

As I crossed back over the Bridge Of Total Annoyance, I heard the opening riff from Bloc Party's "Like Eating Glass." (I was pretty much stuck crossing the bridge for almost the entire song — stupid bridge!) They had a crazy light show going by this point and the crowd was pretty nuts. They ended the set with the awesome "Helicopter" and, as the final notes were played, frontman Kele Okereke tossed his guitar to the floor and walked off stage.

By the time The Kooks hit the TD stage, a sizeable crowd had gathered to hear the quartet's Brit-pop. I only caught two songs from their set, between which singer/guitarist Luke Pritchard gave shout-outs to the lighting guy, who he said he didn't know, but thanked profusely for being so awesome.

The audience was pretty revved up when day one headliners Foo Fighters appeared on the main stage, but Dave Grohl made them even crazier as he growled over the opening riffs of "All My Life." His vocals were super-loud in the mix, which made his several belches throughout the set extra disgusting. The frontman was visibly wasted, but damn, I'll give anyone credit who can be that smashed and still manage to rock out and run like a crazy man around the stage.

After a pretty strong opening laced with a bunch of hits, Grohl said they were going to play until someone made them stop, and that he wanted everyone to "rock balls" and have a great time. He also said they would play some new stuff, some acoustic stuff and "some old shit for the old farts." This all sounded like a fine plan to me in theory, but it didn’t really play out that way.

The long-haired frontman screeched like a banshee during parts of "Breakout," but "Stacked Actors" was stopped midway for some awkward jamming and an unnecessarily long drum solo by Taylor Hawkins, who's looking a lot like Tom Petty these days.

When the acoustic part of the set rolled around with "Skin And Bones" and "My Hero," people started trickling out of the crowd towards the ferry. The Foos brought in a bunch of extra instruments for this part, including accordion, xylophone, keyboards and violin. Grohl then went on to introduce the whole band, which included former full-time and current tour member Pat Smear. He made everyone play solos, including touring percussionist Drew Hester, who played a triangle solo. (Yes, you read that right. And yes, it was ridiculous… and almost funny.)

Grohl spent a lot of time talking. It was more like watching Jack Black on stage than the former Nirvana drummer. This turned the whole thing into something more like watching a caricature of the Foos, and I felt like I hadn't heard as many songs as I would've liked when they ended with "Monkey Wrench," which seemed premature since it was only 10:30 p.m. and no one had booted them off the stage as Grohl had earlier promised. The songs they played, including a cover of The Who's "Young Man Blues," were often extended with wanked-out jams. I started the trek back to the ferry while encore songs "The Pretender" and "Best Of You" echoed across the island.

Grohl made fun of first-time Foo audience members (myself included in that group) earlier in the set for not seeing them in the past 14 years. I really wish I'd caught one of their shows before now, because this one was a letdown.