It’s too bad that the continental buffet spread at TIFF’s annual kick-off press conference is no real barometer for measuring the quality of the festival itself. Lined with thermoses of Starbucks coffee, danishes, sliced fruit, yogurt, and granola cups, and these delicious little bite-size bagel thingies crammed with smoked salmon and cream cheese, not to mention three whole kinds of fruit juice, this morning’s TIFF 2011 announcement spoke to the attention to detail TIFF puts into just about every facet of their operations. And when all the bagel dough, lox, and blueberry smoothie silt had settled, there were the films. Yes, the films. Because this is a film festival, dammit!

A lot of people do a lot of weird stuff on the internet, and ground zero for commercial e-weirdness is Craigslist. In Declassified, Torontoist combs over our city’s listings to find the best (and worst) of the bunch. Illustration by Roxanne Ignatius/Torontoist. This week, we declass the heck out of hypothetical brainwashers, oppressed Caucasians, U2 [...]

No word yet on whether that giant lemon will be making an appearance (Yonge and Dundas anyone?), or whether it will finally be revealed how one might actually dismantle an atomic bomb, but hundreds of U2 fans will be rattling and humming into Toronto for the fifth annual (!) inTO the Heart U2 Fan Festival, [...]

If you’ve spent any time at all-ages punk shows in the last five years, chances are you’ve seen the Flatliners in action. Performing together since the tender age of fourteen, the band has made a name for themselves over the course of their six-year existence thanks to a tireless work ethic and the ability to [...]

Over the past month, Hillary Clinton has been on the hunt for a campaign song, with her “exploratory committee” website inviting her followers to vote on a winner. Finalists included born-and-bred American bands like U2 and Shania Twain, as well as tried-and-true musical legends like Smash Mouth. This morning, however, the winner was announced. And [...]

We can’t quite put away our coverage of CMW without letting you in on some great music that went on Saturday night. Thousands of people milled about town on the busiest night of the festival, and that made it even more difficult to decide which bands to go see. People lined up around the block [...]

You wouldn’t expect to hear the words “AC/DC’s Back in Black” and “recital” in the same breath, but that’s exactly what goes on each month at the Phoenix’s Classic Albums Live concerts. The series features musicians performing an entire album from the classic rock canon, one song after another in a note-perfect recreation that includes [...]

* George Playlist Update: Added this week: “One” by U2 and “All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun” by Sheryl Crow

We caught Chalkmaster Dave outside of the Toronto convention centre creating a sidewalk chalk ad for Harper Collins during Book Expo Canada. The ad was for the upcoming release of U2 by U2 which is being released by Harper Collins Canada on September 26th, 2006.