Hipsters' Helping Hand

Friday night there was a Japan Benefits Concert at the Garrison, organized by the York University group JISA (Japanese International Students' Association), to help the recent tsunami and earthquake victims. A number of local indie bands were scheduled to play with the cover being a minimum $5 donation. Additionally, there was a silent auction: gift certificates to local bars/diners, yoga studios, music boxed sets, etc; a bake sale with cupcakes and cookies decorated as Japanese flags; an origami group ($1 for every crane); and a 50/50 draw.

I dropped by fairly early at around 9 p.m. A Japanese duo was strumming some acoustic J-pop in the front room. I made my way to the back room. Hot Kid, a guitar-and-drum band, was setting up. They turned out to be the start of a night of hipster bands.

I don't disparage hipsters like other snarky internet commenters. When you're young and free of responsibility, you can do whatever you like socially. But there is a kind of aesthetics around the lifestyle. I've certainly seen hipster fans of local bands, but this was the first time that most of the bands also wear the accoutrements.

The female guitarist of Hot Kid was in Julie Doiron mode (power chords and guitar licks), but a lot screamier. The drummer was full hipster. Jack Black meets Village People, sporting a Can't Touch This MC Hammer t-shirt, he went through the whole drummer arsenal of visual tricks: standing up, head-banging, raising drumsticks high into the air in a metal salute, pulling out replacement sticks. At one point, the whole base drum started to slowly tilt over and would have fallen over (much to my bemusement) if not for the eventual rescue from an impromptu roadie. It was a fun set because of all that antic.

Next up was The Elwins: handlebar mustaches, scruffy beard, 50s soda shop cardigan sweaters, and twee indie Beatles-lite meet Elvis Costello. Some of their female fans wore matching Rosie The Riveter-style outfits and bopped along to the songs. Luckily for them, they were on early enough that the local CTV crew captured them on film for the 11 p.m. news.

Make Your Exit came up next, a typical rock band with 2 interesting twists: they have an alto sax player, and they sometimes do 4 part harmonies. For this show, half of the songs were their own stuff and half were covers including Tom Petty's Here Comes My Girl and Wings' Band On The Run. They sounded great and were not hipster-esque at all, except for the fact that they played the covers with an ironic, knowing wink. But like all good musicians, they got into it once they were playing the songs. Some of their fans, however, couldn't get over the idea of "Hey, it's like, classic rock, man" and found it oh-so-hilarious the entire time. Now those are the kinds of hipster I don't mind telling to get off my lawn.

I left at 12:15 a.m. before the final band Modern Boys Modern Girls came on. I  made a couple of silent auction bids but did not win. Maybe next time.