K-os @ Yonge & Dundas Square
8:30 pm on the sunny Friday evening found me hitting up one of the free NXNE shows at Y&D Square. Arriving just on time I valiantly dove into the beyond packed crowd of fans, random wanderers, and broke music lovers to get a better look at the Toronto emcee who strode onto the stage with a full sense of ownership. The crowd was diverse reflecting his appeal and his increasing mainstream status. K-os has a quick, rapid, and smooth delivery, that was backed by a full live band plus DJ/producer. Not bothering with intro stage banter, he launched right into his first song and then quickly blew through a couple of old hits like “Superstarr” and “Man I Used to Be” which prompted cheers. Like any good emcee K-os repeatedly engaged the crowd and by the time he launched into “Crabbuckit”, probably his most well known song, a significant number of the crowd were dancing as much as possible given the extremely tight confines.
DD/MM/YYYY @ The Gladstone Hotel Ballroom
It took until 11 pm for me to make it back into The Gladstone because Timber Timbre, a band that had topped multiple “best of” lists last year and which I definitely wanted to see, had previously played at 10 causing a massive overflow of people. Earlier the place had not only been over capacity, but was also endowed with a huge winding line of people outside that had stupidly arrived far too late. After Timer Timbre’s set there was a sizable exodus, and only then was I able to make it in. Fortunately all was not lost as the next band was hometown heroes DD/MM/YYYY who play loud, jerky, fast, 80’s video game synthesizer drenched, rhythm and percussion driven math rock. Continue reading “NXNE Friday 19th”