040; Noel Gallagher...AKA what a night!

On November 5th I had the pleasure to attend a special acoustic set at the newly named Virgin Mobile Mod Club, formerly known as the Mod Club, featuring the one and only Noel Gallagher. It was a private, pre show warm up to his performances at Massey Hall later in the week.

Mod Club

Virgin Mobile Mod Club: a mini profile

• 722 College Street, Little Italy Toronto
• Fits 600 people (floor, lounge-ish areas, balcony)
• Concert venue - one of my favourites because it's so small, sound is crisp, and there's no barricade separating you from the stage
• Night Club - Not familiar with their system but I know there are UK Underground Saturdays

So my expectations weren't extraordinarily high, although I expected something good because well it's Noel Gallagher, the better half of Oasis. The email invited me + guest to attend a 5 song acoustic set on the re-opening night. What did I get?

• A club full of middle age people - I'm 99% sure my friend and I were the youngest in the crowd
• drink ticket - thank you virgin mobile!
• An awesome view of the stage over all the tall men
• Grown men shouting "I love you Noel" between every song, to which the cool Noel replied" there's a lot of fucking love in this room."
• An 8 song set. He played:
• It's Good to be Free
• Talk Tonight - one of my favourite Oasis songs
• If I Had a Gun
• Supersonic
• Wonderwall - I was not expecting that. Thought he'd be tired of it. 
• AKA... What a Life
• Half the World Away
• Don't Look Back in Anger - soo good.
• A poster commemorating the night on my way out

I definitely got my email's worth.

036; back to: back concerts/school

September 8
Two Thursday nights ago I went to a STP concert and I must say Scott Weiland is incredible! After watching him perform I found a new form of respect for him. I can't help but admire him. After his battle with drugs and despite his age (okay he's only in his early 40's) his vocals whether amplified by a megaphone or straight to the mic greatly impressed me. But enough about Scott, the band's performance was pretty awesome too. They played all my old favourites including "Creep" and "Down", and new stuff like "Between the Lines".
And something interesting I noticed, I was probably the youngest and one of the few Asians (if any) in the stadium of thousands.

September 9
I was pretty excited to hear the university I attend got Montreal's Sam Roberts Band for frosh this year. Land of Talk, which is another Canadian band, opened for them with a 35 minute set. It was pretty spacious on the field during Land of Talk's performance. Everyone sat on the lawn with the sun beaming brightly on the back of their college frosh shirts. Although my attention was elsewhere, they seemed like a decent band. Before Sam Roberts came on, a heard of freshman entered the field after the parade and filled in the spots with vivacious students, spirit, and colours.  Not too long after, Sam Roberts took the stage.

They played my favourites and the set was well timed. The encore was probably my favourite part. They did a cover of Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds "If I Had A Gun." It was one the best covers I've heard live. I really hope there's a studio version soon cause I can't seem to find it anywhere. They ended their set with "Don't Walk Away Eileen" and it was then I thought, I'd really like to see them live again. And on top of all that, the sound was so clear and perfect. I don't know if it was because it was an outdoors concert, or if they had a really good sound check session, or if it was just the band. It was a fantastic show.

029; the black keys, you're my everlasting light

Last week I went to the sold out Cage The Elephant and The Black Keys concert at the Molson Amphitheatre. I'd just like to say that it's one of the best shows I've been to.

• Despite arriving later than usual, I had one of the best seats in the crowd - second-front row and centre on the floor. 
• Two ah-mazing bands for the price/place of one. 
• I finally got my "The Black Keys are my Brothers" shirt - and it looks better in person.
• I didn't have to pay crazy money for a bottle of plain water - I was allowed to take my own water in.
• My personal space was not violated/people around me weren't pushy - for most of the show anyways
• The set list was more than satisfying - I even scored the set list. 

Encore: Sinister Kid, Your Touch

Matt Shultz

Brad Shultz

standing in the crowd

Dan Auerbach

The Black Keys

7 days later, I'm still in awe.

I'm curious to see what they are up to next. If the new album doesn't like Brothers, does that mean they're reverting back or moving forward? Can December come a little faster?

027; MMVA madness (the first and the final)

I attended the Much Music Video Awards this year. I've wanted to go since high school, but because it's always near exam time I always skipped out. Next year I won't be in the country and the year after that I'll feel too old. So this year felt like it was the perfect timing.. plus The Black Keys and Lady GaGa!

MMVA (a mini profile):

• Location: Toronto
• outdoors award show
• held annually on Father's Day (3rd week of June)
• free
• all ages* *For wristbands (you're closer to the stage) you need to be 14+ or accompanied by an adult. If you're watching on the streets you could be a 2 week old baby being exposed to fan girls at their best or a 98 year old lady reliving her teenage dream. 
• show appreciation to Canadian artists (and International artists too) 

I attended the red carpet in hopes to meet my brothers (The Black Keys) and "mother" (Lady GaGa). I didn't get to meet them, let alone they weren't even at the red carpet. That didn't dampen my spirits however.

To my surprise, I met half of Billy Talent. I didn't even know they were coming. My encounter with Ben Kowalewicz was one of the highlights of my night. He was such a friendly guy. For BT fans, when I asked when the new album was coming out he responded with a smile and said "soon." Yay for new material!!

While most of the members of Simple Plan were strutting their stuff, Chuck was "greeting" the fan girls who screamed at the site of anybody who appeared to be famous. I put greeting in quotations because all he was doing was signing anything that came his way, much like a robot who didn't care. I knew Simple Plan was going to be at MMVA so I packed their old cd with me. I held out the booklet for him to sign and he looked up and said "thanks for coming out."  Although I stopped listening to them years ago, I liked the fact he acknowledged me. Small things like that make me happy.

I had the opportunity to meet some people who don't interest me. Some pictures of a few of them:

Shawn Desman

These Kids Wear Crowns

Karl Wolf (?)

Fefe Dobson

Nikki Reed

Abandon All Ships

David Guetta

Down With Websters' lead singer

Selena Gomez

MTV Live hosts
 (I would have liked to meet Daryn Jones actually...)

Here are some red carpet walkers that I would have liked to meet, but didn't have the chance to:

Marianas Trench
(as you can see, they were busy racing in their bubbles)

Bruno Mars

Colin Farrell
(Is he looking at my camera/me? I'm gonna pretend he is anyways..)

Johnny Galecki

The actual award show on the other hand... too many tall people so I didn't see much. I did however see Lady Gaga's dress rehearsal performance earlier in the day. that was another highlight of my day actually.

All in all, it was a fantastic experience. :)

013; "it's not a Slayer concert." - Dallas Green

In honour of the 40th Juno Awards, the people of the Juno and Sirius radio organized a lovely little Juno Block Party. The line up included:

Shad is a London (nearby Toronto) based rap artist. I didn't know much about him prior to the show...I actually didn't know he was going to be at the show. I just knew he that he did a song with Dallas called Live Forever.

Also my first rap concert! which I did enjoy. He has these clever rhymes and raw stylistic flow. I'd say he's worth checking out if, especially if you like alternative hip hop, spoken word, or rap.

Live Forever!

Hannah Georgas has her roots from Vancouver. She has a Metric+Stars kinda sound. I had no idea who she was before the show.... in fact I thought she was going to be a terrible pop star. I'm glad I was wrong though. She's got a lovely voice and her band was wonderful too. 

City and Colour during sound check

Dallas Green - the man of the evening and the reason I was standing there for more than 3 fuh-reezing cold hours. I couldn't feel my legs and my hands were numb but it was worth it. He played two new songs, one of them I really liked and the other one was okay. Nonetheless, Little Hell should be a promising album. He started off with Sleeping Sickness and The Death of Me, ended off with Bring Me Your Love and Sometimes for the encore in a 30 - 45 minute set. There were  some  "remixed" versions of some of the songs because it was too cold to play the acoustic guitar. I really wanted to here The Girl (favourite C&C song) but he didn't play it...and oddly I wasn't too bummed out about it. 

you can see his breathe

GTFO

In the middle of his encore, he stopped singing and everything just stopped. Dallas put a pause on the show and asked this guy if he was fighting and told the guy to get out. After a few more words from Dallas and the crowd chanting "you fucked up", the guy left the crowd escorted by the security team.

Lesson to be learned:

1) Dallas Green does not take shit.

2) In any type of altercation he does not fuck up, rather it is the other.

The whole set list: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_obYW1Nlbw&feature=channel_video_title