No-Cases Day 1

Well last night was a pretty fantastic kick-off to the ECMA weekend with the first night of No-Cases at Hunter's.

The show was bookended by a couple of away performers, the Hilarious B. A. Johnson from Ontario, whom I mostly remember as hearing from my tent as I was in a confused zombie-like stupor on Saturday morning at the Shoreline festival in the Summer. He sings songs about sitting on your couch watching Caddyshack on TV at 3AM and spontaneously named a song after the scuzzy bar across the street, the Velvet Underground. He also took his shirt off on-demand which is not something most performers will have the dedication to their fans to do.



After that were a few PEI bands clumped together on the first night. You could definitely tell that there's a shared quality to a lot of PEI bands, especially Stried who came on right after B.A.. They have a smoother sound, less jarring, and more danceable in a traditional sense of rock music. I'd go so far as to say Stride epitomizes the 'PEI rock sound'. Unfortunately I don't see bands that sound like that really making an impact off of the island or really pushing any musical barriers, but that's probably not their intention. They brought out a good contingent of local music fans who know the bands and filled out the crowd really nicely, so all is good. I'd say similar things about the Robots and Birmingham as well who followed. It was nice to see the Robots for the first time, I just missed them when they were playing at the Wave a few weeks ago, and I'd been enjoying their track on Well-Oiled.

Birmingham were up next. Honestly not my cup of tea musically, but when they move to Ontario and get rich and have throngs of 19-year old girls after them I'll be happy for their success. They play well and are good at what they do, and they were really professional about getting tuend up and ready to go before their start time.

The Bad Motels were the surprise of the night. No one I spoke to really knew them very well, so I had no idea if I should even stay out 'til 3:00am to see them, but I'm glad I did. Very very fast-paced rock. Here's their MySpace page: Link. But the music on there doesn't do their live stage presence justice. The drummer was phenomenal, kept up a super-quick pace all through the set and kept everyone moving and dancing and really raised the energy of the people who were left. I think a lot of people just assumed the night would be over at 2AM like usual which might be why the place seemed to empty out, or perhaps people just naturally get tired and want ot leave by then, who knows. They missed a wicked show-capper, though.



After that we went back to someone's house and played Nintendo and Poker as most people either passed out or went home, which I eventually did after seeing a really great run at Super Mario Bros. 2 by one of the visiting band members. g. and I were thoroughly impressed.

As for tonight, if I can get a ride in the soonish timeframe I'm gonna go see the All-Ages show at St. Pius X Church Hall, with the hilight there being A/V from Halifax and The Establishment. Then tonight I'm sort of torn between Hunter's (Gilbert Switzer & Tom Fun) and Brennan's. Brennan's line-ups here: Link. Hilights for Brennan's are Jill Porter, Double Ought Buckshot and Lenore, but I think I'll be able to see most of them at other shows, so we'll see. Then there's a pretty good chance I may wander over to the 72 hour jam and see what kind of freakss and weirdos don't know what a proper bed time is.
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