Categories : Miscellany, Music Reviews.
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Reviewer: Nathan Atnikov |
The 2010 Sled Island festival covers no fewer than 17 venues across Calgary’s downtown and inner city, and approximately 12,000 bands are here to take part – or at least it feels that way. And while my goal is to cover as much ground as possible and to try to give you a good sense of what the festival is like, I am only one man. So here’s one man’s take on day one of Sled Island.
The festival started, for me anyway, at Central United Church with Lorrie Matheson. One of Calgary’s incumbent musical forces, Matheson powered his way through some of his trademark alt-folk stompers. He bridged almost every song with a trippy psych-breakdown, helped out by his bassist’s effects pedal and some a-tonal wankery. He was warmly received by what appeared to be some loyal fans, but he soon had to give way to Wild Choir. Who I’m sure were awesome. For my part, I left the church and headed over to Broken City, where the night’s festivities hadn’t begun yet. I was getting ready to catch Anti-Pop Consortium at the HiFi Club, and who should walk in the door but APC themselves. Over burgers and chicken fingers, the members of APC could be heard discussing the possibility of laying down some new tracks after their western Canadian tour was over.
A few hours later, APC took the stage at HiFi, and blew the doors off. Their electro-hip-hop veered from instrumental breaks to crooning to straight-up rapping and back again. Their sound was all over the place, and so were their many dancing, devoted fans – many of whom they had to win over for the first time that night.
After APC called it quits, I hustled over to the Legion, where The Almighty Defenders were just getting started. Dressed in religious garb, the band engaged the crowd in some call-and-response goodness while blending soul, gospel and punk into a rousing dance party. But even their dance party couldn’t match Big Freedia. The guy, to put it simply, looked like a hair stylist from an expensive New York salon. That aura quickly faded, as he encouraged the crowd to “dribble it like a basketball.” This was a straight up dance party – no catering to the hipsters for Big Freedia.
Drunk, exhausted and with an increased appreciation for just how much ground there is to cover during Sled Island, day one was over.
