NxNE Day One recap

Thursday, June 8

The Ride Theory, 9 pm at Silver Dollar






For the most part, The Ride Theory play music deeply in tune with the fuzzy, frantic blues sound of The Rolling Stones in their early days. While having a good amount of energy and musical ability to back up their sound, they don’t offer much besides being a well-intended homage. At times they sounded more like The Hives than anything else (and it didn’t help that they were wearing suits). Their slower songs showed more promise and were evidence of a greater knowledge of songwriting, something they will hopefully expand on. (mw)

Born Ruffians, 9 pm at The Boat






Born Ruffians set was, unfortunately, a little hit-and-miss. At times, they seemed every bit the band that's poised to take the world by storm, and the crowd seemed eager to support them in that endeavour. At others, however, particularly near the end of their set, the songs seemed to drag on a little, and much of the energy seemed to drain out of the room. There's definitely room for the band to improve, but they're young enough and talented enough that improvement won't be a problem at all. (mp)

Megababe, 9 pm at El Mocambo


It’s pretty hard not to love Megababe. The female three-piece laid out a blistering punk assault, made even greater by their spunky attitude and their inability to say much in English besides "We are Megababe from Tokyo, Japan!" While songs like "Speak Japanese Or Die" are easily accessible, Ramones-esque punk, there is a high novelty factor that comes with the band. However, their live show was so much fun that it was impossible not to have a permanent smile during it, which may be all that really matters. (sm)

Land of Talk, 10 pm at The Boat






Basically, if you've heard Land of Talk on record, you've heard what they sound like live. For many bands, this would be a problem, but when you've made an album as strong as Applause Cheer Boo Hiss it's something people are able to overlook. Frontwoman Elizabeth Powell needs to develop a bit more stage presence, but she and her bandmates certainly have the music part down pat. (mp)

City Field, 10pm at Silver Dollar












Being a rabid Matt Murphy fan, this review is a little hard to write. Having been anticipating this show for a while and eagerly waiting to hear the follow-up songs to the Authentic City EP, expectations were probably a little too high. The simple fact is that the band are really under practiced. It took a while for them to find their groove, especially singer Mitchell Wiebe, who seemed very uncomfortable at first. Instead of having fun during poppy numbers like “Pretenders”, the band seemed to be completely bewildered as to what they were supposed to do. Hopefully this will change now that they are playing gigs with more regularity now, as they’ve got a number of excellent songs that would be a shame to waste in such a heart-wrenching fashion. (mw)

Priestess, 11 pm at The Horseshoe Tavern







Priestess were loud. Very, very, very loud. So loud, in fact, that I could only stand one song before I felt like I was going to fall over from the sheer heaviness and volume of it all, and, lacking earplugs, I decided to leave. The metalheads in the crowd, however, seemed to love it, and were throwing horns from the moment the band walked on stage and started tuning up. Priestess are definitely a band worth experiencing live, but make sure you're not too close to the speakers when you see them. (mp)

Frontier Index, 12 am at Healey’s








I really wanted to like Frontier Index. However, sometimes there are small things about a band that don’t allow you to like them. In this case, a big thing was the voice of Mick Jackson, main vocalist and drummer. It was a little too warbly and sounded like hokey country music. Also, while the band are fantastic musicians and always seem to know what the others are playing, they seem to think that this means they can play really loud most of the time and completely forget about dynamics. By the end, it felt like all they were concerned with was ripping off wicked solos and that’s not my thing.(mw)

We're Marching On, 1 am at The Boat






We're Marching On's set may have been less hyped and less attended than the four bands that preceded them at The Boat, but that didn't stop them from putting on an excellent performance. Admittedly, they often seemed like they didn't know who was playing what until the songs started, but they more than made up for that with their energy. It helped, of course, that the remaining crowd was really into the band, dancing and clapping along with every song (and, in the case of two people, starting a mini-moshpit). Definitely not to everyone's taste, but still wholly enjoyable.(mp)