Detroit nü-metal masters Yükon Blönde played Toronto. Wait. That’s not right.
Kelowna, BC indie rock / power pop band Yukon Blonde played Toronto's Danforth Music Hall with fellow west-coasters The Zolas. That's better.
Make sure you don't miss clicking through for my photos of The Zolas' amazing set here.
I've caught Yukon Blonde several times over the past several years and their always-infectious take on a power pop tune has always hit my ears the right way. I even recall seeing them on this very stage opening for Stars several years before I started shooting bands.
Yukon Blonde seem to be settling in and sprawling out musically on these bigger stages with longer sets, letting their songs expand with long, immersive jams. This set featured a good balance of their early work with new material. Their encore with The Zolas dudes of The Traveling Wilburys classic "Handle With Care" was a cool way to top off the night.
Follow these links to my previous coverage and photos of Yukon Blonde: at Riverfest Elora and at Lee's Palace.
Check out some great Yukon Blonde music:
"Saturday Night"
"I Wanna Be Your Man"
"Feeling Digital"
"Emotional Blackmail"
Joint cover of The Traveling Wilburys' "Handle With Care" with Yukon Blonde
It's coming up really soon! June 16-25 to be exact. It's the 23rd Annual North by Northeast music festival, more commonly known as NXNE or Northby. Yup, this year it's expanding to ten days, with a dynamic selection of music, gaming, comedy, and more. I hope to be there to capture all the action. Check out the coverage from last year, in case you missed it.
NXNE returns to the Port Lands for three days from June 23-25, 2017. NXNE Port Lands will include two main stages, art installations, sponsor activations, and comfortable places to chill between acts, as well as a comedy tent, and carnival rides.
This year's NXNE Port Lands music festival features: Passion Pit, Tyler the Creator, Post Malone, Bleachers, Sleigh Bells, The Soul Rebels featuring Talib Kweli, Twin Peaks, Cold Specks, Muna, Son Little and dozens more. NXNE's Club Land festival will feature the best up-and-coming bands as curated by some of Canada's best musicians.
"In it's first year the NXNE Port Lands saw thousands of attendees in two days," said Michael Hollett, President and Managing Director of NXNE. "Our growth and expansion for 2017 are based on the success of last year with cool programming from indie rock to hip hop to soul and much more each day."
Let’s hope they found a way to pipe in fresh water for this year!
New for this year is a curated club series featuring line-ups hand picked by Moe Berg of The Pursuit of Happiness, Ian D’Sa of Billy Talent, Brendan Canning of Broken Social Scene, Shad, Leah Fay of July Talk, Nick Rose, Tasha the Amazon, The Dirty Nil, Rural Alberta Advantage and Raina Douris from Indie 88 and CBC. These shows are Monday through Thursday at venues including The Baby G, The Garrison, Cold Tea, The Rivoli, The Dakota Tavern, Bovine Sex Club and The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern.
NXNE Game Land will kick off the 2017 Festival at Yonge-Dundas Square with a massive live e-Sports competition, new video game demos, interactive activations, and live music June 16-18, 2017.
From June 19-25, 2017 NXNE will host hundreds of new and established artists at over a dozen venues across the city for NXNE Club Land, including The Danforth Music Hall, The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, and Adelaide Hall.
NXNE Game Land will present Canada's largest-ever, free outdoor e-Sports competition at Yonge Dundas Square.
Here are some of the artists I'm most looking forward to:
This year marked my first time attending and covering Riverfest Elora. It was a fun, well organized and well curated festival that I'll certainly have in my calendar for next year. I recommend you do, too!
Check out some shots I took around the festival and click through to the individual posts on each artist that I caught at Riverfest.
Vancouver British Columbia indie alternative power pop band Yukon Blonde has solidly placed itself amongst my favourite bands with their solid albums and outstanding live show. This show marked my third time seeing the band live and the second time I got to photograph them. I shot them at Lee's Palace early this year. Those photos are here if you want to see them.
They had an afternoon slot in The Koop tent and this was the most packed I'd seen the tent, and the most fans I'd seen lined up in front of the stage to see a band so far at Riverfest Elora. The band played a very high-energy set including many of my favourite tracks like "Como", "Saturday Night", "Radio" and "I Wanna Be Your Man".
Take in some of this remarkable band's music and don't miss their live show. It's awesome!
Riverfest Elora has just announced their 2016 line-up. The festival takes place in scenic Elora, Ontario at Bissel Park on August 19, 20 and 21. The ticket pre-sale is on now.
The really solid line-up includes Chromeo, Walk Off the Earth, The Sheepdogs, Hey Rosetta!, Matthew Good, Wintersleep, The Rural Alberta Advantage, Yukon Blonde, Dear Rouge, 54-40 Unplugged, Kardinal Official, The Zolas, The Slackers, Radio Radio, Busty and the Bass, Reuben and the Dark, Dilly Dally, Bry Webb, Grand Analog, Young Rival, Jeremy Fisher, Fast Romantics, John River, The Wet Secrets, Whitney Rose, Ivory Hours, Good for Grapes, Bruce Peninsula, Stella Ella Ola, Sun K, DCF, Bossie, Highs, Raven Shields, Lee Watson, Let's Just Be Friends, Etiquette, Brandon Wolfe Scott, Rich Burnett, Alexandria Maillot, The Medicine Hat, Goodnight Sunrise, Tupper Ware Remix Party, D'Eve Archer, Madison Galloway, Lowlands, and Deboer and Joel.
Click through on the links to my concert pics of some of these artists.
And here are some of the acts that I'm looking forward to seeing.
On February 25 and 26, Yukon Blonde headlined sold out shows at Toronto's Lee's Palace. I attended the Friday night show and grabbed these shots of the band during their triumphant and rousing show. The band's fans packed Lee's for this show in celebration of the Yukon Blonde's most recent release On Blonde.
Yukon Blonde's set was packed with awesome tunes from all of their albums, 2010's self-titled début, 2012's Tiger Talk and last year's On Blonde. This was my first time seeing the band headlining and their sound and presence was everything I knew it would be; lots of power and energy with the sublime melodies that they deliver so effortlessly on record.
Their set opened to the sound of David Lee Roth's isolated vocal track from "Runnin' With The Devil". From there, standout tracks for me included powerful opening tune "My Girl", "Saturday Night", "Radio", "I Wanna be your Man", and incredible set closing tune "Stairway".
For the encore, the band returned to the stage for a great rendition of David Bowie's "Suffragette City". Then they brought On An On to the stage to join them for a cool version of Bowie's "Let's Dance" including perfect beer bottle percussion. What a fitting and timely way to close out a great show.
Here are some of my favourite Yukon Blonde songs from their set.
