Hippied! Birkenstocked! Hillsided! It’s Over!
Another year, another Hillside over and done. My clothing is soooooooo muddy. As usual, it was a weekend filled with inclement weather (why so angry, sky?), environmentalism, epic performances and spirited company.
Final Fantasy performed tonight and holy frijole! Owen Pallett played a song or two, thanked us for coming out in the bad weather and added he hoped the rain wasn’t the last straw for us. “Oh, Owen doesn’t have a band, he’s playing old songs. AND IT’S RAINING!” And then it REALLY started to rain. And thunder. And lightning. And yet… he continued to play.
Even as a Hillside organizer clomped onstage to ask him to wrap it up for a minute until the rain died down a little, he continued to play. Even as the organizer came back a second later and made the “cut it” motion to the soundboard, Pallett called “Just one more minute!” He played to the end of the song and the lights went out. He basically invoked a thunderstorm and played through blinding wind and rain under constant threat of electrocution. It was the best performance of the night for sure, maybe even the best performance of this Hillside!
But there were some other highlights:
There seemed to be a theme running through many of the side stage performances. Bahamas performed a cover of “Purple Rain.” Rural Alberta Advantage played “Eye of the Tiger.” And Woodhands rocked out to “Electric Avenue.”
Speaking of Woodhands, their show Saturday night was great (except for the douchey frat boy who insisted on crowd surfing like it was 1994) and they deservingly got an encore. This doesn’t happen often at Hillside. Bands generally get on and off when they’re supposed to. They ended with Be Back Soon.
Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long were the surprise of the festival for me and many others, judging from audience reaction. The talk rockers from Pentiction, B.C. were part of the crowd onstage during the Sunday Morning Gospel Hour and a Half (now two hours) and they blew the roof off the tent after just one song. People. Went. NUTS. Nobody seemed more surprised about this than the players themselves. After their first song, a man sitting beside us cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled “WHO ARE YOU!?” These old hippies couldn’t get enough! Introductions during gospel hour can be harried and the program doesn’t list everybody who performs, so they appeared to have come out of nowhere to testify in a combination of blues, spoken word and folk. Flustered, the bearded Koyczan (but I won’t hold the beard against him) called out the group’s name and directed people to head over to the Sun Stage where the spoken word artists were holding court later in the day. Then, they launched into a cover of “Sexual Healing.” A woman danced topless through the entire gospel hour and two women slow danced. We all went crazy again. Hamilton’s Melissa McClelland was up next and she joked “How do you follow ‘Sexual Healing?’ ” Somebody from the audience called up “With a cigarette.” Zing! Line of the weekend.
If you missed Hillside for whatever reason or you were there and didn’t get to see these the Short Story Long, they’re playing at the Drake tomorrow at 8 p.m.
Final Fantasy - He Poos Clouds: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Woodhands - Be Back Soon: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long - Apology: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadBuy Final Fantasy and Woodhands albums from Zunior. Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long don’t have albums available on their website yet. In the meantime, check them out on iTunes.
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Thanks for coming out and we at Sound Salvation Army hope you enjoyed our coverage of Hillside this year. As the lone atendee (I’m trying to convince Pat to come out to Ontariariario in 2010), I was extremely pleased to find out that Pat played a bunch of bands who were live at Hillside this weekend for our corresponding radio show on CJTR. Hooray for synergy! So, think I left something out? Feel like I am wrong and stupid and want to tell me what I missed? Send me an email at tanisfowler@gmail.com or go right ahead and click the little comment button. Feedback is our friend!
