Results tagged “livebabylive”

Photo by Carrie Musgrave.

Photo by Carrie Musgrave.

Unless you live under a rock, you know that the North by Northeast Music & Film Festival is currently underway...and if you've stayed out past two nights until almost 5 a.m. like some Torontoist staffers, you really know it's here. You'll be hard pressed to find very many other music events going on this week, since almost every venue being occupied by the festival, so we suggest you just go with it and take in a bunch of bands you've probably never heard of. If you need some help, we've provided these three handy previews for you.

Lots going on around town over the next little while. One of the city's biggest music festivals, NXNE, held their press conference this week announcing the 2007 lineup (warning, the list is tough to read), hosted by Dave Foley. Many show dates and venues were announced, including the addition of the Dinosaur Jr., Voxtrot and The National shows as officially being part of the festival. Limited wristbands will be accepted at each show, so if you really want to go, you're better off buying tickets.

Aaaand, we're back! Live Baby Live had a false start a few weeks ago, but we're officially back in action now and have changed things up a bit. The listings will now appear on the site mid-week and run from Thursday to Wednesday.

After a short hiatus, Live Baby Live is back on its feet (along with it's author) with an abridged version of the listings this week. Hurrah!

Now that CMW is out of the way, it's time to move onto other pressing music matters -- such as, why the hell are all these really great bands coming to town and playing the Kool Haus?! Can we not get a better venue than that? We just spent three of the last seven days at that venue and had to stand near the soundboard just to get even remotely clear audio of the shows. The acoustics there are almost always terrible...but then again, it is pretty much a giant tin box. /rant

It's finally here - the week of festival hell insanity. Got your wristbands and earplugs ready? Canadian Music Week kicks off on Wednesday with the Indie Awards at The Docks, and Thursday to Saturday will have you running around town trying to catch as many acts as possible. Wristbands are $35, or you can purchase (limited) tickets at the door to most shows. Not your thing this year? There's also the Pitter Patter Festival running from Wednesday to Sunday. It features fewer acts than CMW but depending on your preference, it might give you more bang for your buck. Keep an eye on Torontoist for previews of both festivals in the coming days.

It just never ends. Never. Ends. The stream of tour announcements is still going strong, and we're now at the point where there are 3-4 shows to choose from on some dates -- our calendar is starting to look as busy as a CEO's! As suspected last week, The Police added a second Toronto date to their tour schedule, on July 23 (tickets on sale now)...good thing Sting practices tantric sex so he'll have enough stamina for all of these dates. Sorry, bad visual...shake it off. We're looking forward to the ever adorable Lily Allen, who will be back in town April 5, and is hopefully bringing a bigger setlist with her this time; Feist will be gracing us with her presence at Massey Hall on May 26, in support of her new album The Reminder; and Muse is apparently opening for My Chemical Romance on May 11, but since it's not confirmed, we won't get too excited yet (about Muse, not MCR).

Let's just get this over with right off the bat -- Arcade Fire have announced their Toronto show dates. Hurrah! They'll be at Massey Hall on May 15 & 16, and tickets go on sale on Feb. 23rd. Predicted time to sell out? 1 minute 49 seconds. If you have no luck with those, the next closest location is Montreal on May 12 & 13.

It seems pretty appropriate that we just had Groundhog Day, given that we're feeling a little bit like Bill Murray looking at the concert listings this week. Not only is there very little going on, but most of the bands who are playing seem to be here every week (Apostle of Hustle, The Tragically Hip, Hostage Life, Friendly Rich). Thus, we have nothing left to say about them! So if you've already seen these shows, it is advised that you take this time to rest up because the end of February and month of March are going to be insane for loads of high quality live music.

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 did last year. Here's hoping that we get a slightly more mature and diverse bill, which will likely be announced in the coming few months. Here's also hoping that none of the bands get the shaft due to schedule issues (hello, Flaming Lips!).

"Just take those old records off the shelf, I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself, today's music ain't got..." Oh. Ahem...sorry, just reliving the old days of Fisher-Price rollerskating around the house to Bob Seger (and Joan Jett, if anyone's counting). Did you know that good ol' Bob is in town this week at the ACC? Did anyone know he was still alive and kicking? There are still tickets available for Tuesday, so it might be a good opportunity to spend some quality bonding time with the parents.

After a three week hiatus, the music listings are back! Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays.

The year is winding down and so is the music, which is kind of nice, actually, because there seem to be a lot of tours already gearing up for 2007. Hopefully Alexisonfire isn't one of them...we have no idea how they can manage to go onstage and scream for 7 solid days (they have a few more shows this week). Insanity.

We're a little late with this week's music listing--blame the election! Er, okay, maybe someone just got immersed in learning a bit of Flash and let it slip. It won't happen again.

If you're not completely burnt out from Nuit Blanche, there are plenty of quality shows to check out this week, including Joanna Newsom, Massive Attack, and Myspace darling Lily Allen. Alternatively, you Hip fans can skip out on the live music this week and save up your change for all four (yes, FOUR) of the recently announced shows at the Phoenix a few weeks from now. Can Gord Downie and pals really justify the $60 admission fee these days? Could they ever? On a similar note, Guns N' Roses are coming to the ACC in November -- should they be asking fans to shell out up to $85 to see a bloated Axl Rose trying to slither around the stage, caterwauling 'Sweet Child O' Mine'? Wouldn't that just be painful to watch? Are we asking too many questions? Okay, we'll stop.