Saturday, July 2nd, 2005

Inside & Out

Some of Canada hoariest music veterans will be gathering in Barrie today to represent the grizzled, craggy, pockmarked face (hi Bryan!) of Canadian rock for the Live 8 shindigs. Last night, however, my nominee for the best new face of Canadian music – one Ms Leslie Feist, born in the Alberta, based in Toronto and inspired by the French – took the stage at Harbourfront Centre in front of upwards of 2000 people (my totally unfounded estimates) to celebrate Canada’s birthday.

Backed by a full band and a variety of guest performers including Broken Social Scene co-conspirator and opener on this evening, Andrew Whiteman from Apostle Of Hustle, Feist’s set blended slower, torchy ballads with uptempo, groove-heavy numbers and a healthy dollop of good-humoured banter and storytelling. Even in a big outdoor venue, Feist had the charisma to make it feel like an intimate club gig and actually managed to make Canada Day sexy. Performing her slow-burning “Intuition” while the fireworks went off across the lake at Ontario Place, it felt like the explosions were going off in slow motion. Magnificent.

I was waaaaay way way in back for this one so I’m surprised I got the photos I did. I’m sure there will be far, far better ones circulating soon enough. Or check out my past ones.

Laura Cantrell tells Being There about the making of Humming By The Flowered Vine.

Chart talks to The Futureheads. I appear to be incapable of coming up with an interesting lead-in sentence to Futureheads links.

Franz Ferdinand have announced the dates of their North American tour in support of their second eponymous album, out October 4. It includes a stop at the Ricoh Colisseum in Toront on October 18. Goodness, was it just a couple years ago that I saw them in the Horseshoe? They grow up so fast. More tour dates at Dreams Of Horses and Billboard gets the low-down from Alex Kapranos on what to expect on the new album (besides the same artwork as the first one).

Anyone who’s already got copies of Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois would do well to hang onto them… they’ve had to recall all copies from retailers just before its scheduled release date this Tuesday. Apparently someone wasn’t real happy with their use of a certain “Man Of Metropolis” on the cover art and got all lawyer-y on Sufjan’s label. Here’s the revised artwork – I can’t seem to find a pic of the original art online, man those lawyers move fast. I unexpectedly got a promo copy of the album on Thursday in addition to the one I preordered and which is in the mail, meaning I will have an extra copy of the original artwork editions. Naturally, I will sell it to the highest bidder. No offers under five figures, please.

Oh, and the album is fantastic. Hopefully it won’t be delayed for long.

np – Sufjan Stevens / Illinois

By : Frank Yang at 10:13 am
Category: Uncategorized
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  1. angryrobot says:

    Here’s the original artwork with Superman on the cover. What were they thinking?

    http://…/

  2. Frank says:

    I know! Especially when you consider that Metropolis is actually in Deleware, not Illinois…

    http://…/

  3. feist does it better says:

    Feist was incredible live. I hope to see some more great photos of the show too!

  4. suckingalemon says:

    feist/apostle was great.

    when i got there at 7 i saw families and old people and wondered when apostle got all these fans. that girl who felt feist up when a little over that line one should not cross.

    cheers

  5. TS says:

    la-la-la-loved her show! listening to ‘inside and out’ with fireworks was too much – made me a happy canadian little camper. happy canada day indeed!

  6. dreamsofhorses says:

    Frank there actually is a Metropolis in Illinois:

    http://…/

  7. Frank says:

    yeah, but it’s not SUPERMAN’S Metropolis. That’s in Deleware. Like Gotham City is in New Jersey.

    Or so the DC atlas link says, anyway.

  8. dreamsofhorses says:

    But it is the Metropolis Sufjan wrote about. That article even says Illinois passed a bill saying Illinois is Superman’s home (weird bill to pass)

  9. christopher says:

    Seems like a lame publicity stunt to me. Any idiot knows you can’t put the friggin’ MAN OF STEEL on your album cover w/o pissing off DC Comics.