House of TARG is a very peculiar live music venue, featuring walls of classic arcade game machines, and a pierogi-centric menu. It was pure chance that I happened to look up live music events in the city a month earlier and happened upon the Eventbrite page for this one before tickets sold out: Ichi-Bons opening for 5.6.7.8’s. A Japanese band? In my city? I bought my ticket on the spot. Not only that, but 5.6.7.8’s are an incredibly well-renowned all-women garage rock band — while the Ichi-Bons were a very cool-sounding surf and rockabilly trio hailing from Toronto. A really cool combination that I was excited to hear in action.
I hurried home after work and got ready to go, intending to order myself some pierogis when I got there… but I was so flustered and anxious that I couldn’t bring myself to go up to the bar. Which was okay. It happens. The atmosphere was really warm and relaxed though, with the musicians walking through the bar before their set, getting drinks, chatting, and wandering over to the stage to make last-minute adjustments. As much as I love an impressive, big-stage production, there is a lot of charm to be found in small-venue performances like this one.
Ichi-bons were up first and they really electrified the room, getting everyone moving with their fast-paced, high energy bangers! I particularly enjoyed their zombie song, which was interspersed with screams — the title of a song before it was a literal scream too. Cheeky is the word that came to mind when I was thinking of how to describe their set; good old-school rock!
They packed up their instruments and left the stage, then the three members of 5.6.7.8’s replaced them, each of them bringing a tote bags onstage. They set themselves up, and then they got the whole joint dancing to their rock ‘n roll tones with catchy tunes, singalongs, screams, and shouts!
At one point, the drummer asked the crowd (in very good English) how to say cheers in French. Santé!, we cried out in reply. She thanked us, they echoed the phrase, and then added, 乾杯！Their sound and stage presence was just fantastic; each of them masterful in their playing. I had a blast and couldn’t stop grinning.
When the main set ended, the entire room crammed with people in front of the stage, we weren’t ready to leave, so we called them all back, insisting “one more song!” and lucky for us, they obliged and gave us several!
わざわざオタワに来て頂いてありがとう！
It was an incredibly fun, rock-filled night.
The day after, Moonfruits played an outdoor, evening concert at Lansdowne when the weather was still warm but not hot. I headed there right after work, early enough to go have a pizza before their set started. I’ve been rather obsessed with white sauce pizza lately…
Moonfruits played with a cellist as their guest and immediately drew the outdoor audience in with an enchanting duet and their easy conversation, telling us all a bit about what their latest Canadian tour had been like, prefacing songs with explanations about their origins centered in family history and recent experiences. The last time I saw them was at their Salt album release party, and so this time it was lovely to hear a setlist that included some of the gems from that album along with older pieces.
There were lots of parents with their children in the audience, and eventually some of the kids dragged their parents up to the front of the seating area to dance near the stage. It was adorable… until one of the kids decided to pull his pants down and, well, moon Moonfruits.
The kid’s mom was mortified, and couldn’t stop giggling nervously as she pulled his clothes back up and whisked him away.
(I laughed nearly to the point of tears)
It was the exact opposite of the soft, folk sound of Moonfruits, and that’s what made it so damn funny.
Gradually, the parents and their kids left as the night wore on (as adorable as the antics had been, I think we were all glad that the last third of the set had a calmer audience), and they played sing-along pieces like Seven Billion and some French folk classics (most notably à la clairefontaine, which is utterly beautiful every time I hear them play it) that we stomped and sang along with. It felt like an outdoor kitchen party… until they lulled us into quiet contemplation under a nearly-full moon with their beautiful song Moon Cradle.
A few days later, I took a trip to the outer edges of the city to see The Smashing Pumpkins. I’d been feeling emotional all afternoon and had developed a headache and some nausea and had initially decided not to go, but as the night wore on, and I finally managed to eat some supper, I decided to go — provided I could make the bus that would get me there just before their start time (I missed Interpol, unfortunately!).
I did make it. Cuddled into my Chiko & Saga hoodie, I settled into my seat and joined in on the enthusiastic cheers and applause as the band took to the stage. I was there, and I was elsewhere at the same time, wondering what Saga would think of the spaceship-style angular lighting above the stage, and which songs he’d be most stoked to hear. The set and the stage lighting felt a lot heavier somehow than the last time I’d seen them, and the setlist was a really great mix of new pieces from ATUM and older, much-adored pieces.
Like any great rock show, the music gradually took my mind off of feeling physically unwell and I just floated in their sound, transported out of my body and into an imagined space. The floodgates opened right off the bat when they began playing Perfect and I continued to cry through Disarm because it was just so unbelievably beautiful, like the sound of the song was blooming and wafting up toward the ceiling. I don’t know how to explain it — the song just had a life of its own in the performing of it.
And after I’d let those emotions out, I felt a little lighter, and just enjoyed the hell out of the rest of the concert for what it was: a really wicked rock show by one of my favourite bands.
They opened with The Everlasting Gaze and Doomsday Clock both of which I loved hearing, and later on played an unexpected favourite of mine: The Celestials. Like the last concert I went to, I was glad that WPC and James did a soothing acoustic version of Tonight, Tonight… and Jimmy’s drum solo later on in the evening was just awesome.
During Beguiled, WPC’s two kiddos rushed onto the stage and began dance wildly behind him as he went into his guitar solo, prompting delighted chuckles from the crowd (it was completely unexpected, and absolutely adorable). Rock show that it was, there was so much good humour threaded throughout it.
WPC and Katie sang a gorgeous duet; the choruses of Spellbinding and Purple Blood were so satisfying live; the classics of Ava Adore, Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Zero, Cherub Rock, and 1979 were awesome — completely lit up the crowd, me included.
I’m so glad that I got myself to the venue in time to see them again; I was tired as I made my way home, but I felt energized, too.