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NXNE Day One: The (Un?)official Kick-Off
Kitchener’s Wayfarer brought their sweet Hot-Water-Music-esque dynamics to the Bovine, Wednesday, June 16. Photo by Nancy Paiva/Torontoist
North By Northeast started last night! Sort of. The Wednesday schedule of the annual festival is not widely documented in weeklies, etc., as it’s mostly reserved for invite-only industry kick-off events or perennially hip big(ger)-ticket bands at big(ger) venues. Plus, it’s probably wise to head home and get your rest before the city keeps its bars open and extends its dang last call until 4 a.m. for the next three nights. But still, there was stuff happening! We went to some of it!
Perhaps the the best place for scaled-to-fit-venue mosh pits and full-on crowd surfing to the back of the room was the Bovine Sex Club. Featuring a roster of punk bands hosted by local pay-what-you-can label Juiceboxdotcom (co-run by our own Ashley Carter, in case you didn’t read it the last time we told you), as well as the rootsy stomping of local not-so-punk band the Cavaliers (featuring a guest vocal appearance by the Flatliners’ vocalist Chris Cresswell!), it was rammed and fun and we hope the rest of NXNE got off to as positive a start. Famous people were there. Like George Pettit of Alexisonfire and Ian Blurton and Torontoist. We came, we saw, we tweeted—much to the chagrin of the guy who passed us and scoffed, “Facebook alley” at us. Hi! We will keep doing just that until NXNE runs out of stuff for us to do.The fun is just starting. Choose your (our) own adventure.