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By Johnny Suck - Turn Down the Suck - 07/12/2006

In my review of last year’s Sounds of The Underground, I had three major complaints against the festival. It was at a terrible venue, it started three hours late -- resulting in ridiculously short sets -- and the line-up was a mess. Luckily, all three of these issues were fixed when SotU made its return to Montreal on July 12th.

It was held at Metropolis, this city’s best big venue, instead of the terrible Stade Uniprix. It was coming from Toronto, so there were none of last years border problems, and was scheduled to start at 5:00 – which it did. And the line-up consisted of only seven bands instead of last year’s 16. Interestingly enough, Montreal, along with Las Vegas, had the fewest bands of all the dates on the tour; most cities have at least 12 bands playing. Bands that were on this leg of the tour but that didn’t play Montreal were Converge, Behemoth, The Chariot, Horse The Band, and Through The Eyes of The Dead.

Here are the bands that played:

• The Black Dahlia Murder were up first. The stage was clearly too big for them, a common problem at any festival, but they managed all right. I think they could have been more fun, but they still got a surprisingly decent crowd reaction. Actually, every single band went over better than I was expecting.

• Out of the seven bands, I was looking forward to 2.5 of them. Terror were the .5. They had really good energy, a solid stage presence and were pretty darn enjoyable -- if you didn’t think about it too much. To their benefit, and the festival’s detriment, they were the only hardcore band on the bill.

• “We aren’t here to teach you right from wrong. We’re here to smash your face in”. Ahhh… Cannibal Corpse, don’t you love them? Because, I sure don’t. They periodically sound like they’re on the verge of being good, but never quite make it. I need more groove in my death metal, but that’s just me. Just about everyone else in the crowd seemed to love them. To their credit, they had the best stage banter of the afternoon with their dedication of “Fucked With A Knife” to all the tittays in audience. Classic.

• Whereas Cannibal Corpse merely sing about certain things, Gwar actually get up on stage and do them (like cumming blood, for instance). They were the only band to return from last year and with good reason. Gwar were definitely the most important band of the day, as they helped keep things interesting. Their onstage antics of decapitation and ejaculation break up the monotony of endless calls for circle pits.

• Trivium kicked off the second half of the day, and boy did I hate them. I have no problem with bands that aren’t that good, but bands that get on stage thinking that they’re Metallica or Iron Maiden really get to me. I’ll admit that they sounded alright at times, but generally they were a mess in terms of both songs and sound. This band needs less rock star posing and more focus and tightness.

• Second headliner In Flames earned their spot with a quality show. They did pretty much everything right and almost made a fan out of me. They had just the right mix of performance and natural rocking out, and they really delivered that concert feel. Admittedly, the best part of their set was just watching people in the audience sing and gesture along. I realize that I also look like an idiot when singing along to my favourite band, but these people were just great. I think it’s due to In Flames’ particular mix of serious heaviness and pansy-ass melodies.

• To end the show, As I Lay Dying came out and smoked all the other bands on the bill. With the exception of Gwar’s visual entertainment, As I Lay Dying beat each band on all counts. How good were they? Good enough that if I didn’t suck at knowing lyrics, I would have been singing along to “Darkest Nights”, “Confined” and “Forever”. Yeah, they were that good. Give them one more album, resulting in a few more killer songs, and they should be unstoppable live.

  An interesting thing about As I Lay Dying is that they revealed how weak Trivium really were. Their songs actually work, their screams are actually powerful, their melodies are actually clean and catchy, their performance is actually tight, they actually know how to work a crowd, and they don’t come across as a bunch of dicks. In particular, AILD definitely lacked attitude. They pointed out how lucky they were to be such a young band headlining over the likes of Gwar, Cannibal Corpse and In Flames. They acknowledged how much fans paid to see them, and they appreciated it. They were just totally a class act in every way. My only real complaint is that the singer talked over the intro to “94 Hours” -- he should know better.

Only having these seven bands was definitely an improvement over last year’s 16, and was preferable to the 12 or 14 that played most cities. It was not quite the perfect number though; nine is probably the sweet spot. Throw on one more hardcore band and one other miscellaneous band and everything would be balanced just right.

Of course, a good festival is more than just the bands that played. In this respect, I think Sounds of The Underground was lacking. There was really nothing to give it that festival atmosphere. A proper festival should somehow feel special and this one didn’t. It just felt like a regular show with a lot of bands. It’s possible that the confines of Metropolis held back that festival feeling. If that was the case then fine, it’s an acceptable trade-off. It seems though that the organizers could have stepped up and done something to make Sounds of The Underground more than just another metal tour.

Overall, the second installment of Sounds of The Underground was a definite improvement over last year’s. Being at a decent venue was the main reason, although that may have only been happenstance due to the World Beach Volleyball tour taking over Stade Uniprix that week. Regardless of whether the venue change was intentional or not, it was for the better, even if it meant that certain bands did not play or that some atmosphere was missing. In Flames, Gwar and As I Lay Dying all played excellent sets. The crowd was very enthusiastic and appreciative, if a little sparse at the beginning and end of the day. And all in all, Sounds of The Underground 2006 – The Montreal Edition was a success.

[Tune in to Turn Down The Suck Mondays from 6-8pm.]

By Alex Huynh - Losing My Edge - 07/10/2006

Making their seemingly annual June visit to Montreal, Wilco stepped up to a feverish and slightly bro-tastic audience and after the two first songs, I had this review all written up. Kicking off with "The Late Greats", they seemed in great spirits but there was something too perfect in their rendition. I had maintained after last year's show that we will look back at their A Ghost Is Born tour (yeah, which one?) as their peak, as after years of well-documented turmoil inside and outside of the band, the addition of multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone and of course, guitarist/fuckin' genius Nels Cline seemed to have revitalize Wilco and Jeff Tweedy in particular. While the two new members didn't work on the album, they had fleshed out AGIB to a point where it wouldn't be so wild to call Wilco the best touring act on the medium-size venue circuit. Well, on this night, something just didn't seem to kick in. Following the opener, "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" was decent, but given the musicianship assembled on stage, they could shit out "decent" in their sleep -- a state I was rapidly approaching myself.

Then it happened. "Hell Is Chrome" was simply arresting, like a poisonous dart right through the heart. It was as though time stood still, as Tweedy's presence was felt for the first time and when Cline's solo kicked in, Wilco was finally in the building and my mental review was trashed. Continuing with "Handshake Drugs" and a monstrous and crowd-pleasing version of Summerteeth's "A Shot In The Arm" (where drummer Glenn Kotche slightly inched out his bandmates for the song's MVP), the band was hitting on all cylinders and delivering a beautiful performance. Half of the set consisted of AGIB songs, not surprising as it was during those moments where you saw what Tweedy calls the defining Wilco lineup really come out. You really felt then that they loved playing together and it wasn't just Jeff Tweedy's backing band.

Yet, it was difficult to ignore the fact that the setlist was nearly identical to the last few times they came to Montreal. Only a handful of new songs were unveiled, though I suppose that is hardly a common complaint. There also seemed to be a slight evolution to the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot songs, a "let the good times roll"-ification, if you will. Songs like "Jesus Etc." and especially "War On War", desolate and heartfelt on the album, were rollicking and fun here. This is not a complaint, however, because the studio recordings reflected the band's (and their nation's) situation at that point in time and here we are, four years later, Wilco emerging as triumphant survivors -- their nation, not so much -- so the current versions reflect their outlook today. It was like they had to reinvent the YHF songs to get away from their 2002 selves and again, it is obvious that Wilco is in a much happier and saner place these days.

Perhaps that contributed to what I felt was a certain confidence -- bordering on cockiness -- in their performance. Whereas the two previous Montreal shows had the band experimenting with the AGIB tracks with the aforementioned addition of Sansone and Cline (though never tentatively, one has to add), they were now sure of the places they wanted to go and were nailing the songs with almost clinical precision. Whether this enhanced or detracted from the show is debatable and certainly a subjective matter. However, even without the element of surprise or fresh perspective, one can't help but be moved by moments like the solo kicking in at the start of "At Least That's What You Said" or the genuinely good vibes of the set closer "Hummingbird".

To their credit, the encores mixed things up a little bit, showcasing the folkier side of Wilco, some Being There tracks ("Forget The Flowers", "Kingpin", "Monday") and the already good-times of YHF's "Heavy Metal Drummer" and "I'm The Man Who Loves You". So all things considered, Montreal got a relatively diverse performance from the present incarnation of the band and while nothing absolutely new was unveiled, they still preserve the title of the best touring act on the medium-size venue circuit.

A little word on fellow Chicagoans and openers The M's: while I still think that they lack a bit in the songwriting department, their performance grew on me just like their album Future Women did. They sounded great despite the initially cavernous Metropolis -- I thought it was background music being played on the house speakers and not a live band when I stepped in. The Elephant 6 element was downplayed live -- I didn't see any xylophones! -- but the four-piece were rockier and had great harmonizing, as pointed out by an idle mind. Worth a few listens, because just one might not do.

[Tune in to Losing My Edge Sundays 2pm-4pm and Tuesdays 8pm-10pm.]

By Johnny Suck - Turn Down the Suck - 06/12/2006

Even though it’s lame, I still like to go slumming now and then. So you better believe I jumped on a free Godsmack ticket...

On my way over to Metropolis, I passed through the Francofolies site, which had Andrée Waters performing on the main stage. Stopping to watch for a few minutes, I was surprised by how good she was and even thought about sticking around for the whole set, Godsmack be damned. I don’t make light of commitments though, so I grudgingly continued on.

While not entirely eager to see Godsmack, I still thought that there was a chance that I’d like it. Come on, they can’t be one of the biggest hard rock bands around for nothing, right? Well, in the end my general impression of the show was one big meh. Their songs weren’t interesting enough to keep my attention for 3.5 minutes and they weren’t nearly heavy enough. While I probably would have loved Godsmack back when I was 14, I’m way past them now. I realize how incredibly snobby this sounds, but I think the 2000 cheering fans needed to be enlightened in that ways of Rock. Still, for the unenlightened masses -- I’m pretty sure I’m being sarcastic -- it was definitely a good show. I only recognized a few songs but pretty much everything went over well. Front man Sully Erna did a pretty good job of working the crowd, although the repeated "Thank you Canada"’s were silly. It bugs me when a single crowd of people is treated like an entire country. Seriously, the people there were Godsmack fans first, Montrealers second, and Canadians third or fourth.

Nitpicking aside, Sully Erna is still a solid singer with a pretty nice voice, which made it surprising that the best song was an instrumental. I’m a sucker for percussion, so when Erna exchanged his mic for a second drum kit and started getting all tribal, you know I smiled. Throw in a bunch of quality riffing, some "Moby Dick", a bit of "Walk This Way", a touch of Metallica and extend it, extend it, extend it and you’ve got the song of night, hands down. It was exactly the type of thing that you want to hear in concert, rather than just all the same songs that you’ve heard 100 times before, played exactly the same way as on the album.

In the end, I’ll admit that they were alright, just not at all for me.

Highlight: Watching a tag team catfight break out between two Barbie-doll blondes and two ‘big’ girls. The blondes would have gotten pummeled had the fight not been broken up by a couple of idiot guys. Apparently some people don’t know the meaning of the term "erotic hilarity".

[Tune into Turn Down The Suck Mondays from 6-8pm]

By Erin Stewart - Rock the Plank - 05/15/2006

It was a rainy Wednesday evening outside, as the Spectrum filled with a crowd buzzed with the anticipation of Scotland’s post-rock kings, Mogwai (named after the cute, furry, yet potentially sinister gremlin-producing/becoming creatures from the film Gremlins). Despite being a full show located at one of Montreal’s largest venues -- well in my world anyway -- I knew nary a soul in the largely francophone crowd. I was previously unaware of the franco-devotion to this sextet of aging Glaswegians, but my Montrealais ex-boyfriend informed me after that his ilk loooove Mogwai. So after nudging my way through the French chatter into the sweet spot (middle back, between the speakers) the house lights dimmed and the fancy, ray-of-colour-beam-shooting disco lights commenced along with a droning wall of noise.

Mogwai ambled onto stage, wearing matching green track jackets; however, this was not your garden variety boy band. Instead of breaking into choreographed dance moves, these six thirtysomething, pasty white Scottish men launched into a serene, vocoder-employing, super-loud sonic ballad to an excited crowd. The sheer bulk of sound waves emitting from Spectrum’s massive speakers was palpable; the bell-clear drum beats resounded to the very core of my mildly vibrating sternum. I stood transfixed for a while, literally feeling the music and the emotion of the performance. Not that the lads themselves were particularly “show-stoppers”; they mostly stood in place and went through the motions, one by one shedding their athletic exteriors. It was the music -- a lot of it unfamiliar to me as I stopped paying much attention after Rock Action despite Young Team being one of my favourite albums of the 90's -- that was positively entrancing.

I’d also never really considered Mogwai stoner music until I smelt the Mary Jane being blazed by les hommes beside me (and subsequently recalled one time this dude Chris, who used to hang around my warehouse abode last year, sat in the middle of the room stoned out of his pants facing the speakers blasting Mogwai at 3am) and thought yeah, that makes sense. Having gone through a mellower period in the middle of their eleven-year career, the most recent album Mr. Beast returned to the louder, more cacophonic sound of early Mogwai, and they were certainly producing quite the sonic wall that evening.

Check out Mr. Beast released this past March on Matador Records, and I recommend Young Team -- which I’ve owned for nearly a decade, don’t I feel old -- featuring a vocal appearance from fellow Scot and super nice guy Aidan Moffat of Arab Strap.

[Tune in to Rock The Plank every Thursday from 4:00pm to 6:00pm. ]