Rogers Picnic @ Historic Fort York

Music concert featuring the following bands: (in order of presentation)

The Carps
Born Ruffians
Dizzee Rascal
Vampire Weekend
Animal Collective
Chromeo
Tokyo Police Club
Cat Power
City and Colour

Alright, so it was a great concert. Horrible day to hold an outdoor concert. It rained the entire time – it came in buckets about 4 times throught the 10 hours. My friend and I ran to the front so we’d get good spots. We got perfect spots. Slightly off to the right, but at the very front. Anyhow, it was a lot of fun, but… I was really disappointed, but you’ll see why in a second.

RANKING OF THE ACTS

#1. Dizzee Rascal
Alright. Dizzee Rascal is UK’s biggest rap act at the moment, I think. I’m not British, but they do have the #1 track in the UK at the moment. Anyways, their performance was just amazing. Their set was about an hour long, and when it ended, everyone screamed them back onto the stage for two more songs. They’re true ‘gangstas’ because they didn’t even play their #1 song until they were called back. They were the only act to really get the entire audience to do as they said. It was really funny, because they were rapping and you know, asked people to fill in the blanks, right? Well, everyone was like “YEAH!!!!” and when they had to fill in the blanks like… 6 people (including myself, ’cause you know how I do) knew what to say. The rappers were like “NO! You don’t know this song!” but then they told then the part and it was good from there on out. Funny guys.

#2. The Carps
It’s disappointing that they were the opening act because 80% of the lineup was still in the line to get in while they performed. The Carps – Ontario natives – had more energy than any other band I’ve ever seen. They really wanted to get their name out there and it worked. I’d only heard a few songs on their MySpace because I wanted to sample their stuff because I heard them live, right? Anyways, they were just as good as Dizzee Rascal. The band consists of a guitar/keyboard player and a drummer/singer. At one point, the guitar/keyboard player dove into the stage and crowd surfed… during a song. It was pretty damn crazy. Oh and they even told a story in the middle of one of their songs. I don’t know if that’s how the song goes, but yeah… It was pretty intense. They spoke a lot to the crowd, too. The crowd did what they said – things like “clap” and “jump around” – but the crowd only had like 200 people at most. Awesome performance, still.

#3. Tokyo Police Club
I love this band. They went on stage and played their entire catalog of old songs, plus about five new ones. They just tore up the set like mad. If you love their music, you’ll love them live. They sounded almost the exact same as they did on their CDs. A lot of fun. Really. Everyone was just bouncing around to their crazy-ass songs.

#4. Vampire Weekend
One of the top bands that will make my favourite artists list when they release more work. This band – if you haven’t heard them – is so fresh, so creative and so hip that it’s harder to hate them than to love them. They played their entire CD and a new song that was just as good as my favourite songs by them prior to the event. Gotta love these guys. On a side note: I was very worried they weren’t going to hold up at this concert. I’d heard they really butchered their music live, but they didn’t seem to fail in any section here. I guess they improved live.

#5. City & Colour
A perfect way to close the concert. Dallas’ beautiful voice really worked well with the fog and chilliness of the evening. People were shivering, but felt warm inside thanks to C&C’s emotional songs. I appreciated their songs a lot more on stage. Perhaps it was the atmosphere that surrounded the event or just the fact that I didn’t expect much from them, but they were grand! Funny story: there were two huge balls that would change colour when someone touched it and these things were around the audience, right? One of the security guards took the balls away when they came near him, so Dallas goes “Aw, dude, give them their ball back. You’re going to start a riot over balls? Damn, guy. Everyone boo that guy” so everyone did. That jerk never gave us the balls back, though.

#6. Born Ruffians
Even in sixth place, I have to say I loved these guys. The lead singer, Luke Lalonde, opened the act by saying “I’d like to thank God… for allowing us to play without any rain” (it was raining all day). Anyways, this band was very fun as well! The main reason I liked the band so much was because of the drummer, who was just crazy fun. He had the most energy out of everyone at the event. Screaming, playing drums, singing, telling jokes… funny guy. Great act.

#7. Animal Collective
Aw man. I felt horrible when they performed. They didn’t feel like they were there at all. Actually, they weren’t all there which could be the reason they weren’t very good. Geologist wasn’t present due to an illness that fell on him the day before the concert, so Panda Bear had to play drums and do the mixer, but he must’ve thought the mixer was more important so he was playing with that for a bit and hitting drums. A lot of what they played I hadn’t heard before and it didn’t sound like a coherent song – even by Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit They’ve Left Us’ standards. It was just a lot of different sounds blended into the two songs that they did play: Fireworks and Brother Sport. The song they messed around with didn’t even sound like Fireworks Essplode, either. It just sounded like a bunch of mixing with guitar. Very strange. Needless to say, I didn’t enjoy this performance. I was really let down. They better come back to Toronto soon. I’m seeing a good performance by them if it kills me.

#8. Cat Power
Well, this is the only performance I didn’t “see” all of. I had to take a break from standing due to my arthritis, so I left the front of the crowd to go lay down. I enjoyed her music as I laid down, though. I got back to the stage with two songs left in the set. She did a very good job and the crowd loved her. Her voice almost put me to sleep, though. A very good performance; I hate to rank it so low.

#9. Chromeo
They were fine, but they just bothered me. Their music is fine and all, but I just didn’t like them that much. I was just waiting for the next act to come up because after their 2nd song I was like “OK, finish now”. They were fun, though. Both of them were cracking jokes and stuff, but I just couldn’t enjoy them. I’m sure some loved them but I just didn’t like it much at all.

Overall, I loved the event. Despite the rain pouring down on me, I was able to enjoy it a lot more than I thought I would under these conditions. Hell, the rain made it more fun at times. The only thing I can say after experiencing this is: When it says rain or shine always come prepared with something in case it does rain.