Burlington, Ontario 80s new wave legends Spoons performed on the Bandshell stage at this 2023 edition of The Ex. I've covered the band a whole bunch, most recently at this year's Riverfest Elora.
It's always a treat to hear some of my favourite 80s Spoons classics like "Arias & Symphonies", "Old Emotions", "Nova Heart", "Romantic Traffic" and "Tell No Lies", plus some new tunes, like "First and Last Time". The band sounded great and put on a fun, crowd-pleasing performance.
Riverfest Elora is my favourite summer music festival. It combines artists I love with new artists that I've never heard of that find a permanent spot in my music library. The vibe of the festival is chill and inviting, friendly and fun.
The 2023 edition of the festival is also their lucky 13th festival, and my sixth. And there wasn't a drop of rain during the festival!
Thanks to the Riverfest Elora team for curating and orchestrating an amazing weekend of music, fun, food and friends. And, of course, for granting me access to capture the images of the festival performers.
Follow the links below to individual posts on each artist that I covered.
I grew up in the 80s. I was exposed to a lot of Canadian music; Canadian pop music in particular. Spoons were one of the biggest new romantic / pop bands from the day. They had huge hits like "Nova Heart" and "Romantic Traffic" to name just two, and were all over radio and video channels.
Since then, they've continued to perform and put out new music for their many fans. I'm always happy to catch a Spoons performance and this year's set at Riverfest was no different. They had a full house of fans that packed the Koop Tent for their set.
Spoons are a classic Canadian band, still putting out great shows and cool music, that I love to listen to and see live.
Since forming in Burlington Ontario in 1979, Spoons have been creating uplifting, entertaining and lasting, classic, new wave tunes. I've loved them since I first heard them in my early years and I continue to love the music they produced and continue to produce.
This show at Toronto's Great Hall was in celebration of the release of their latest album New Day New World. Singer songwriter guitarist Gordon Deppe made a deal with us early on; they'd play the classics but they'd play the new tunes, too. True to their word, we got an excellent set featuring the new and the classic in good proportions.
They opened with a bunch of new tunes before launching into crowdpleasers "Nova Heart" and "Arias and Symphonies". Bassist and vocalist Sandy Horne's daughter Alexa joined the band on stage to sing backups on "Paint By Numbers Day" from the new album. As we were reminded that they've been making great music for forty years, we heard more classics like "Romantic Traffic", "Old Emotions", "Tell No Lies" and their updated version of "Nova Heart". For an encore, we heard "Bridges Over Borders" with a bit of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax" and "End of Story".
Former muchmusic VJ Michael Williams spun classic 80s tunes to get the crowd warmed up before Spoons took to the stage.
Spoons are one of my favourite bands. They're legends of 80s pop, writing and performing landmark tunes that defined a genre and influenced so many artists. I've written about them and photographed them a few times now. I always love hearing their classic new romantic pop tunes and it looks like they still love playing them for us.
This show took place during the Canadian National Exhibition, a.k.a., The Ex at the Bandshell. Spoons hit the stage ahead of fellow 80s legends Men Without Hats. Click through for those photos.
Spoons sounded great and brought out a hit-filled opening set consisting of the tunes below, closing with their modernized version of "Nova Heart".
This year marks my second time officially photographing Burlington, Ontario new-wave band The Spoons. They have been a favourite band of mine since I first heard their music when Arias & Symphonies came out. My first time photographing them for the web site was back in the summer of 2014 and it was also at The Ex. Click here for those pics.
This time, The Spoons were opening for Alan Frew at The Bandshell. They put on a great show of the old favourites, sprinkled in with some new music and some reimagined versions of their classics. It was a highly satisfying show for me and the band's fans who gathered for the show. Fortunately, the day's rain parted in time for the show, although large puddles in the pavement made my job more interesting, and more soggy.
Join me in enjoying some of my favourite Spoons songs, from their Ex set:
