Id and Ego

NxNE also puts on free shows at Yonge-Dundas Square with well-known acts. Not only is this good on the pocketbook, it allows teens to attend the all-ages events. But they might have been wondering Friday night who was the "Dad band" on stage.

The old geezers were the re-united noise band Swans. Over the next hour, they proceeded to pound out songs of crescendoing repetition, effects. Only the slight changes in drums or bass signaled any evolution of the noise wall they put up. The lead singer yelled, sometimes sing, and often shouted obscenities. He also acted as a conductor, directing the others in shaping the sound. From some of the reactions, and subsequent reviews, many were enamoured with the set. I was bored myself and if I wanted to zone out on cyclic music, I'd listen to the complex and interesting gamelan playing.

If Swan was about "play what you like", then St. Vincent was about "rational mind" with her precise guitar picking. The show was carefully choreographed where she played the role of a robot musician (with her signature wild mane tied down in corn rows), perhaps as a nod to the virtual hologram performers (Hatsune Miku, Tupac, Michael Jackson) that are starting to show up on stage. She either played in unison with her backup, or skittered around the stage as if her legs were on wheels. It gave an oddity to her songs: the emotions within the lyrics in contrast with the "automaton" performing. Like all good sci-fi conventions, the robot broke down during the encore, collapsed into a heap after increasingly wild and out of control gyrations.