Last night at the Opera House, local concert goers met their match. Toronto audiences are (in)famous for their subdued responses at live shows, which is usually expressed through a steady nodding of the head. Scottish indie group Camera Obscura provided an equally stoic performance, with singer Tracyanne Campbell delivering each song note-perfect yet devoid of any physical expression beyond the strumming of her guitar. Even the infectious single "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken"......

Concert announcements are coming fast and furious, now that everyone's back to their regularly scheduled programming. A number of festival dates are set all the way into September already, including the return of V-Fest to Olympic Island on Sept. 8-9. The festival is expanding out west this year, with Vancouver getting it's innaugural V-Fest -- although judging by the current lineup so far (headliners only), they're catering to a much younger crowd than Toronto......

It seems to be the week of Alexisonfire, who are playing just about every venue in the city over the next 7 days, starting on Thursday. We predict a few bruised ribs and black eyes just in time for Christmas...so kids, if you're going to the show(s), be a little gentler to each other knowing that your parents will be pissed if you're posing for the holiday photos with a shiner. This public service......

The year's not over yet. There could be at least two more Beyonce/DC3 singles for us to consider for our Best of 2004 list. For those who don't understand what we're getting at, it's a shot at Pitchdork's OUTRAGEOUS best singles of 2004 list yesterday. Those aging cewebrities must not have known that their number nine pick, Beyonce's "Naughty Girl", was an unoriginal fourth single off of an overplayed 2-zero-zero-3 album. Anyway, here are some......