By: Alex Pulec
Pictures: Grace Cavarra

Spiral Beach was the first band to take the stage on Day 2 at the Toronto Islands Virgin Festival. With the forces of nature against them, they did a formidable job of trying to brighten up the mood of the crowd drenched in the pouring rain. Playing songs from both records and even some new tracks, they whipped through their set and bounced around the stage, as if the sun was shining bright. They set up tightly in the centre of the stage not using the copious amounts of the virgin mobile stage, which made the performance ironically more intimate.
http://www.spiralbeach.com

By now, the sun was out and the rain had stopped just in time for Sebastien Grainger and the Mountains. Improving greatly, since the last time I saw former Death From Above member and his band, they played like high-energy dance machines. Sebastien Grainger entertained with his live show. I was glad to see a band that got people moving and jumping around so early in the game. Slightly pretentious in banter, yet humbling at the same time, his actual songs were mostly unmemorable; you won’t find yourself whistling any of his tracks on the way back to the beer garden. Sebastien Grainger was the perfect opener for a festival like this and has finally shown signs of breaking his musical rut.
http://www.sebastiengrainger.net/

Secret who? You’re probably thinking the same thing, who are they? Why are they here? Oh Henry had a little contest a while back where voters selected between 300 bands to play V Fest this year. After voters narrowed it down to a top 20, the judges (including Sir Richard Branson himself) selected 5 bands to participate in voter driven polls to play this year’s V Fest. At the end of it all, Secret Broadcast came out on top surprising more than just myself. Bands like this are usually tight machines live, but it’s hard give credit to a band that can just practice for hours and get it spot on when there is neither substance nor originality. Possibly, the most regurgitating band of the day, there was always at least one other song or band that you could draw a very clear comparison to for every song they played. I can’t list them all because, well, I’ll be nice. Why did they play 4 hours later than Sebastien Grainger and The Weakerthans? This would have made sense if they were on earlier with the rest of the new unknown bands.


(We know it’s footage from Calgary, but it’s pretty similar.)

The crowd went wild when the biggest modern Brit pop band in the world took the stage, but no one knew that a little bit of history was going to be made to cap off the end of the Toronto Virgin festival 2008. Oasis played fantastically with all their arena guitar rock glory and persona, provided hit after hit and classic UK decadence. Alas, halfway through the set Noel Gallagher found himself with a suspected broken rib and ligament damage after a man assaulted him onstage. The Oasis star was midway through “Morning Glory” when he was violently pushed to the ground by a man who stormed the stage. I think the pressure of the guitar in between him and the monitor is what caused most of the damage. I had the upmost respect for Noel, since he returned to the stage a few minutes later to complete the band’s set. Best of all, they played just as amazing, as if nothing ever happened. I heard that Noel was taken to hospital after the show. It was pretty entertaining watch Liam trying to throw as many punches at the offender as he could while himself was held back by security.
http://www.oasisinet.com/

This entry was posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 1:22 pm.