A Different Kind of Groove

I wasn't planning to go to any NXNE shows this year, but I was enticed to check out Adelaide Hall Friday night with an offer of free entry from sponsor Red Bull. The downside was that I had to be there early to guarantee my spot. Luckily, most of the bands playing were excellent.

First up was Zoo Owl. This young performer didn't really connect with the crowd. Wearing goggles covered by glowed lights, he fiddled and twisted his way through a set of effects and samples. Kudos to him for trying to engage the crowd. But this was too straight-forward to be interesting experimentation and too jarring to be simple EDM fun. Not a promising start to the evening.

Ava Luna from Brooklyn was much more successful with their eclectic music. Starting with Billz, their funky beat and falsetto singer made it seemed like it was going to be a set of neo-R&B. But they didn't stay in one genre, not even within one song. So we had punky Company, proggy Tenderize, spoken-wordesque Sears RoeBuck M&Ms, and soulful PRPL. But it all seemed to work thanks to good harmony and great rhythm and arrangements.

Diana was the most "conventional" of the bands. This Toronto band, comprising of members of other groups, mined synth-pop love songs. They gave us a few songs from their debut including Perpertual Surrender and Born Again. But it was mostly new tunes and a cover (A Walk Across the Rooftops). What made their set was the complexity of their music: Carmen-Elle's jangly guitar and soft voice, Adams' poly-rhythmic drumming, and Shabason's wall of distorted sax sounds. Top 40 radio don't sound like this.

Unsurprisingly, the place was packed for Warpaint. Last time through Toronto, this L.A. outfit played at the much larger Danforth Music Hall. So between first song Undertow and ending with Disco/Very, everyone was ready to sing and groove on every song. Indeed, underneath numbers like Love Is To Die and Elephants were propulsive bass lines and drums that drove the airy vocals forward. There wasn't much idle stage banter but singer Emily Kokal did mention that Warpaint hadn't play a live set in awhile. That only made the crowd even more vocally appreciative of their set.