LIVE: V-Fest's Second Day Nearly Erases Day One Disaster
Monday September 11, 2006 @ 05:30 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff


September 9-10, 2006
Olympic and Centre Islands
Toronto, ON
by Noah Love

Toronto has been yearning for a big festival for a long time. While they seem to be popping up around the U.S. with staggering frequency, the best we've gotten has been Broken Social Scene's now annual June event. That all changed when "rebel billionaire" Richard Branson's Virgin Festival announced it would do two North American shows, one in Baltimore and one on Toronto's islands. The Toronto edition would feature more than 40 acts and be headlined by The Flaming Lips and Massive Attack on Saturday and Sunday respectively. Of course, things didn't go exactly as planned, as Massive Attack pulled out at the last minute, leaving festival organizers to scramble for a new headliner. They found it in their backyard: Broken Social Scene. The hiccup wouldn't be the last for the suddenly beleaguered event.

Saturday
By the time I got to the islands on Saturday, the Virgin Mobile stage (or main stage as I'll refer to it from here on) was already 15 minutes behind. Mean Red Spiders are one of those bands who simply don't work for an outdoor festival. Actually, I think they could work if they chose to avoid their slowest shoegazer material, but that wasn't the case on this cloudy afternoon. I'm sure fest organizers had MRS' brilliant Stars & Sons record on their minds when they booked them to play, but those songs were almost entirely avoided. Not the best performance from a band who are definitely capable of a lot more.

After taking a break to do an interview, it was back to the main stage for Phoenix. The French band were in excellent form, playing tracks from both of their acclaimed releases, though they hit the stage a good 35 minutes later than expected. Tensions were beginning to creep in, as the island has a strict noise policy where music must typically end by 11 p.m. Delays like this meant someone was likely going to have to be cut from the lineup. It was even more odd when that didn't happen.

At the same time, Buck 65 was doing a minimalist set on the Future Shop Stage (henceforth to be known as the second stage). Buck announced during the set that he has a new album on the way, and played one stellar track from it, "Spread 'Em." He also broke out a countrified version of "Wicked And Weird" as his set closer and received a nice ovation for his excellent efforts.

Knowing that everything was behind on the main stage, I raced back to catch most of the Hidden Cameras set. The band were in far better form than they were at Harbourfront a few weeks ago, and they made far better set choices. They were also lucky to play during the peak of the day. The weather would soon hit a cold snap and literally suck the life out of the audience.

I heard bits and pieces of Starsailor, a band whose remote fame I don't understand at all. They rose to popularity during an awful phase in British music (one I don't think they've quite yet escaped) when every band sounded like a shitty version of The Verve. Simply awful stuff. Only a small crowd attended, meaning these borons might not have much left in the tank.

Thankfully, all of this was erased by Eagles Of Death Metal, who heated up the chilly, damp night with songs from Peace, Love, Death Metal and Death By Sexy. Paramount was the former's "English Girl," which positively stung the speakers. But that was the end of the good times on V-Fest's first day. The events that followed were truly horrendous.

I had to ditch the Eagles set halfway through in order to catch what I thought would be the start of Gnarls Barkley's set. By all accounts, the main stage had nearly managed to get back on time. But when I got to the other island, this was clearly not the case. Gnarls' set-up dragged on and on, and now there were serious concerns about how this would affect The Flaming Lips, to say nothing of the fact that Kid Koala was inexplicably not allowed to play the first of his two sets during Gnarls' brutally oversized changeover.

When they did hit the stage 45 minutes late, close to the time they were scheduled to finish, they were somehow allowed to perform their entire set. I'm no festival organizer, but I'm not an idiot either — protect your fucking headliners, people. Considering how little star power this day had in the first place, the maximum effort should have been made to ensure the Lips would get their full set length. I get mad typing about it even now.

I don't want to take too much away from Gnarls Barkley's performance. They did most of St. Elsewhere with more than decent energy, and the crowd was somewhat into it, though mostly deflated by the long delay. "Crazy" didn't have the kind of impact a single of the year should have, but "Who Cares" and a slowed down "Transformer" more than aptly showcased Cee-Lo's marvelous vocals and kept things light.

The Flaming Lips did a good thing by allowing poor Kid Koala, whose boat nearly sank on its way to the island early in the day, to do a short set during the changeover. Closing with his immaculate three-turntable take on "Moon River" he got the crowd back into the proceedings — just before the impending disaster of the festival.

At 10:35 p.m., Wayne Coyne got into his famous vinyl bubble and walked over the crowd before hitting the stage to join the rest of the Lips on their always and forever opener, "Race For The Prize." Coyne's voice was fairly cut up, a stark contrast from his passionate Lollapalooza performance, but nobody seemed to mind.

But after the two parts of "Yoshimi" and a couple of tracks from At War With The Mystics, a stagehand dressed as Captain America whispered something in Coyne's ear and the colour drained from his face.

"Captain America just told me we have to pull the plug," Coyne muttered at about 11:10 p.m. He expressed his disappointment, but said the band had wanted everyone on the main stage to perform, which explained why nobody had been dropped from the lineup or moved to the other stage. But the crowd could hardly believe it. Nobody moved for five minutes. Beyond a couple firings of the confetti cannons, though, that really was the end. Organizers were going to have to pull an elephant out of their hats to make up for this disaster on Sunday.

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Sunday
Still feeling a little sore (not physically) from the previous night, I skipped the early part of the chilly but sunny second day. I got on the media boat at around 4 p.m. and sat in the bottom for a few minutes before noticing a fairly recognizable blond guy striding toward the boat with a small entourage. It was none other than festival moneyman Richard Branson, whose Cheshire smile couldn't entirely hide the look of concern in his eyes. Still, he was nice enough, asking about the first day and engaging in a quick chat about the day's weather before an army of Virgin employees and media boarded the vessel. Sadly, I didn't have the courage to tell him his people had so royally fucked up the first day, but I'm sure he already knew.

Anyway, I arrived to catch the last few songs of Wolfmother's set, which was a surprise because they ended so early. It turned out the festival had pushed all the main stage times forward about 10 minutes. What can I say about Wolfmother? I've mysteriously managed to see the band three times this year and I can't figure out how that happened. I think it's because every time they play, the alternatives either suck or don't exist. And whatever — they're not terrible. They have a lot of energy and I don't mind any of their songs, except "Woman," but that's mostly because I'm so sick of hearing it during Madden '07 games.

On the second stage, K'Naan played a superb set of songs mostly from The Dusty Foot Philosopher, aided by a guitarist and an African drummer, who made a single large bongo sound like an entire kit. "In The Beginning" sounded especially great in the park, and the sound people have to be credited for making everything sound both loud and crisp.

I caught a few minutes of MSTRKRFT, who belong in a club and not on a sparsely attended stage in daylight hours. The duo definitely weren't performing under the best of circumstances, but they seemed to be having fun nonetheless. You can sense Jesse F. Keeler is truly relieved to treat this as his main project, even if his fans aren't. (I would have killed to see DFA 1979 as a main stage act. Oh well, life goes on.)

From there, it was over to the main stage for the rest of the night. Here too came the first signs of cracks in day two. For reasons that make no sense at all, The Strokes' changeover took about 20 minutes longer than it should have. Considering the quintet have one of the sparsest stage setups imaginable, delays seemed unreasonable. Maybe it took a while to actually round them up. Regardless, almost all of the day's attendees were on Olympic Island for the feel-good set of the evening.

Everyone owns The Strokes records, even the new one (admit it, you completists). "Red Light" and "Heart In A Cage" got almost as much applause as the tracks from Is This It, which was the basis for most of the NYC garage revivalists' set. "12:51" was stellar and, as the sun set, "Reptilia" rang through the park while the band were swathed in blinding green and blue lights. To that point, it was the highlight of the entire event. One note, Julian Casablancas seems to be drinking again, and wasn't nearly as on as he was when the band toured through this area in the spring. Still, he was chatty, saying he finally "gets" Canada, and he made fun of Sammy James Jr. of The Mooney Suzuki for yawning during one of the first few songs. James, for those interested, reciprocated with a middle finger.

The Raconteurs were up next and played nearly the same set as they did at Lollapalooza a few weeks ago. The crowd ate it up and, once again, the nighttime atmospherics pushed the performance over the top. I'm pretty sure they played every song from Broken Boy Soldiers, as well as a few covers, including their now ubiquitous take on Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang." Jack White was clearly the biggest star of the fest, drawing wild applause for every over-the-top guitar solo and scream. A few months ago, White told Chart that The White Stripes existed in their own universe and wouldn't be affected by The Raconteurs, but I wonder if that universe is falling light years away from his mind at this point. He seems to be having a lot more fun with his Detroit drinking buddies than he does with his ex-wife.

The minimal delays on this day meant replacement headliners Broken Social Scene would only have an hour to squeeze in as many of their epic tracks as they could. But that's what made them the best part of last month's Lollapalooza. Without any time to dick around, Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning's 39-piece cut all the fat to do a stellar set at that festival's third night, and I'd argue this one was a close second, and easily the best part of V-Fest.

Most exciting was the fact that the entire Scene made it, despite the fact that Feist and Stars' Amy Millan were both performing in the U.S. the night before. And with that, they blasted through hit after hit, including "Superconnected," "KC Accidental," "Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl," which featured the two aforementioned indie divas and Emily Haines, and an Earth-shattering take on "Ibi Dreams Of Pavement." The group were aided by the weekend's most eye-popping light show and proved that if you're gonna have a festival in this city, you can't ever go wrong with BSS. As "Lover's Spit" rang through the park to close the show, V-Fest confidently stepped back from the brink of total disaster.

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he sadly forgot to see muse, who easily stole the show.

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this show was awesmoe aside from them cuttin short the fuckin' flaming lips, and the strokes were awesome and i dont care what any ones says...julian totally looked at me ...haha so did jack! it was awesome

i had a great time, the strokes were good, but started off kinda slow...the racounteurs were amazing. i was so suprised on how good muse were and gnarles barkley. flaming lips were wonderful, as usual but their set being cut short sucked.

still guffed about massive attack, i was dying to see them.

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