The third day of the festival fell on a Friday night, but the crowd was in a diminished capacity compared to the night before. Maybe the lack of a real "big" act kept people away. The weather was gorgeous again, but clouds in the distance spoke bad news for Saturday.


Getting to the festival early with no expectations is a great way to experience new music. The festival has so many artists playing that you're bound to find something you like, but haven't heard before.


The Stills were playing right as I walked through the door, and these kids have the moves down pat. The rock posturing, the way the lead singer leaned into the mic, these kids have watched their heroes and emulated them well. Which is the problem in itself, there was so much derivative nonsense going on, both in their music and presence, that it detracted from their set. Some of the teenagers seemed to be enjoying themselves though, so maybe I'm just a grumpy old guy in his mid-twenties.


I first ventured over to the Hard Rock Cafe stage where City of a Hundred Spires was playing. The band consists of what seems like 4 music nerds, channeling their favourite new prog and instrumental groups. Pelican, and Isis seem like good starting points, but the strongest would be early material from The Trail of Dead. The band was skilled, but the looks on their faces spoke more to concern than fun.


After a couple songs I wanted to see what else this early hour had to offer, so I wandered over to the Subway stage where Lindsay Ferguson was keeping early Steve Earle fans occupied with standard fare light rock. Ferguson had an odd moment where she claimed she was performing her own music/lyrics, after finishing her previous song "and if that mocking bird don't sing..."

I made my way to the Blacksheep stage where The Dodos were keeping a whole raft of kids happy with brand of indie rock. One of the biggest things of note with this new bevy of young bands is their unique approach to instrumentalism.


The Dodos have two percussionists and a guitarist. They make light, poppy indie music that should appeal directly to the Pitchfork crowd. The numbers at this early show was an indiciation that they've been successful so far.



As the final notes petered out for the extinct birds, I headed back to the Hard Rock Cafe stage to catch Okkervil River.

There was a huge audience for the Austin, Texas band who ran through their variety of folk rock for an extremely receptive audience. The band was having a lot of fun, which showed in both their appearances and their music.

Light and poppy, it was a nice diversion under the increasingly lower sun. The group looked like they had partied too hard the night before, and probably the night before that, like true professionals, they soldiered on despite their condition.



After a few songs, I decided to see what else the festival had to offer at this particular time slot, and I came across Carlos Varela on the main stage.

Speaking and singing in spanish Carlos was clearly there to fill the "world" music quota, but just like every show, there was some guy shouting requests(in spanish..natch). The music was enjoyable, and the duet he shared with a pretty young girl(whose name didn't make my notepad) was fantastic.


As Carlos finished up, Sam Roberts took to the Rogers stage in front of a massive audience. Roberts is a bluesfest/Canadian favourite and he plays for the audience.


He punches up his live show compared to his recorded output, and the audience responded with enthusiasm. Roberts makes music that is relatively universal with teenagers, aging rockers, and children in the audience. All of them were having a good time.


Roberts needs to hire a new basisst though, he looked like he was straight out of a Robin Black video, where he had accidentally eaten a pound of horse tranquilizers. Boring and weird doesn't even begin to describe it.


Roberts had material left, but the real reason I was at the festival that night was just starting up on the Subway stage. Steve Earle is a legendary singer/songwriter in both the rock, and country circles. Earle can be found both with a band, and without, and tonight was the latter. Some of his die hard fans were dissapointed by that, but I've never seen him live at all before, so this was a perfect chance to sample what he had to offer in a stripped down format.


Earle ran through both his hits, material from his most recent studio album, and quite a few songs from his recent reworking of Townes Van Zandt material. The audience was warm to just about everything, and besides one idiot yelling for Copperhead Road(which Steve dealt with very well), it was a great venue for Steve to perform.


He only got political near the end of his set, and even then he kept it brief. He did call our Prime Minister an asshole, which won big points with the crowd, and with this writer. If you have the chance to see Steve in any capacity, I highly recommend it.