A sweet surprise, an accessible location, familiar songs, an abundance of food options, a few heavy downpours, a new twist to an old game, a million planes passing overhead and a sole beer tent: this was Edgefest 2008.
The discovery of the day and one to watch out for, came from Montreal's kitschy Creature.With their rock-pop debut album "No Sleep At All", Kim Ho, CowBella, SidZ and Anna Ruddick can definitely make you dance! They came out singing "Who’s hot Who’s not?" and ended with my already personal favorite "Pop Culture". Worth mentioning: crazy AA outfits; Kim Ho's and CowBella's funky ultrasound like voices; and many a cowbell on stage! If you're ever in need of some "booster kicking" songs in the morning, you should check them out…http://www.myspace.com/creaturecreature or http://www.creatureband.com/
Former Tool guitar tech, Billy Howerdel and his band, Ashes Divide debuted their inaugural cd "Keep Telling Myself it's Alright" to the first rain drops of the day with the song "The Prey". Alternating mellow to more hard rock songs, this alterna/rock band somehow managed to move some heads in the crowd.
By the time the infectious sounding The Bravery took the stage the first major downpour of the day began. Surprising the crowd didn’t seem to mind and actually started dancing, singing and getting into the mood and mud! Even at 4pm on a rainy afternoon vocalist Sam Endicott (who's looking very Crispin Glover-esque) manages to rock it all. With a massive backdrop of the cover of their last release "The Sun and The Moon", the New York band caught everyone’s attention. With songs like "An Honest Mistake", "No Brakes", "Every Word is a Knife in My Ear", "Believe" and the must-clap-your-hands, "Public Service Announcement", Edgefest finally seemed to get a much needed kick-start. As the rain kept on pouring down Endicott reminded the drenched audience, "this is not the end of the world" and dedicated the next song "No Brakes", "to the big fat man singing and dancing with only a towel in the back!"And so he went on, talking to the crowd in between songs, encouraging them to sing and dance, and while candies were flying on stage making it the "sweetest stage" the band as ever been on, others continued dancing in the rain while waitin
g in the massive beer lineup. I however wondered when and if the band might put of something as good as their debut.
Attracting the 30+ crowd, Sam Roberts Band rocked into their new release "Love at the End of the World", which inspired the first crowd surfers of the day, some to the point of getting up at least three times! But this is the Sam Roberts crowd: true pop rock lovers, the ones that can sing along to "Oh Maria", and dance along to songs like "Bridge to Nowhere". The 2003 album "We were Born in a Flame" is still a crowd favorite and the Sam Roberts Band is well aware that their first single "Brother Down" and "Where are all the Good People Gone?" cannot go missing in each of their performance, as the crowd eats them up. With his dreamy eyes, Sam Roberts still manages to catch all the attention and rocks out hard. But would you consider it edgy? I think not.
Though the wait time was lengthy we managed to get some of the best entertainment in and out of the sole beer tent.Fenced in like animals, afraid to leave, as the lineup to get in was pushing a 4 hour wait at times, the Bud-infused beer drinkers came up with a reincarnation of the classic Slip 'N Slide. Let's call it Extreme Table 'N Slide: 4 round tables, some with a plastic covering, others with exposed wood, lined up, dowsed in water and one crazy dude sprinting 20m to slide over the tables in craziest way possible: flips, flops and many wipeouts. Ouch! This had to hurt. Just as the tables were raised to get some air involved in the tricks, the cops broke it up to much disappointment by the crowd.
Now what were we to do while waiting for STP......For those who didn't have the patience or the necessary id to enter the beer tent, the fences were the next item of attack, as at least 100 people broke through before security could control the breach.And for those guys who couldn't walk the crowds to the port-a-potties, and were teased by the many behind the fence in the beer tent, a lone, empty fence behind the media tent and adjacent to the stage was taken over by guys and girls alike. (Yeah we all saw you!)
An hour in a half later the reconciled Stone Temple Pilots took to the stage. It was as if it was a test to weed of the true fans from the fakers, as upon settling into "Big Empty" another downpour occurred. Soaked, the crowd ate up all the band had to give: every hit imaginable. "Vasoline", "Big Bang Baby", "Wicked Garden", "Lounge Fly", "Lady Picture Show", "Sour Girl", "Creep", "Down", and "Sin". With the mandatory crowd surfers afloat there was still, however something missing.... Was it the odd interstitials of Queen's We Will Rock You or Lou Reed's, Walk on the Wild Side that sucked out some of the energy or was it Weiland's failing voice? Though you can't blame Weiland's on and off stage efforts: when he wasn't singing from atop the drum kit or on raisers, or halfway though the crowd belting out "Plush", he was pacing the stage. STP played a solid set with an encore (odd for a band with second billing at a festival). If you haven't seen Scott Weiland perform in one of his few incarnations, do try to catch him while you can, cause if there's on thing for sure, you never know if he'll be back.
Following the STP set, we garnered some so-called inside information: some of the members of headliner Linkin Park were had yet to arrive in the country due to plane troubles. Knowing this, and knowing the event had a strict cut off of 11pm, and it was already after 9pm, we decided to pack it in for the day, feeling exhausted and 'dry' we set out to get 'wet'.
The discovery of the day and one to watch out for, came from Montreal's kitschy Creature.With their rock-pop debut album "No Sleep At All", Kim Ho, CowBella, SidZ and Anna Ruddick can definitely make you dance! They came out singing "Who’s hot Who’s not?" and ended with my already personal favorite "Pop Culture". Worth mentioning: crazy AA outfits; Kim Ho's and CowBella's funky ultrasound like voices; and many a cowbell on stage! If you're ever in need of some "booster kicking" songs in the morning, you should check them out…http://www.myspace.com/creaturecreature or http://www.creatureband.com/
Former Tool guitar tech, Billy Howerdel and his band, Ashes Divide debuted their inaugural cd "Keep Telling Myself it's Alright" to the first rain drops of the day with the song "The Prey". Alternating mellow to more hard rock songs, this alterna/rock band somehow managed to move some heads in the crowd.
By the time the infectious sounding The Bravery took the stage the first major downpour of the day began. Surprising the crowd didn’t seem to mind and actually started dancing, singing and getting into the mood and mud! Even at 4pm on a rainy afternoon vocalist Sam Endicott (who's looking very Crispin Glover-esque) manages to rock it all. With a massive backdrop of the cover of their last release "The Sun and The Moon", the New York band caught everyone’s attention. With songs like "An Honest Mistake", "No Brakes", "Every Word is a Knife in My Ear", "Believe" and the must-clap-your-hands, "Public Service Announcement", Edgefest finally seemed to get a much needed kick-start. As the rain kept on pouring down Endicott reminded the drenched audience, "this is not the end of the world" and dedicated the next song "No Brakes", "to the big fat man singing and dancing with only a towel in the back!"And so he went on, talking to the crowd in between songs, encouraging them to sing and dance, and while candies were flying on stage making it the "sweetest stage" the band as ever been on, others continued dancing in the rain while waitin
g in the massive beer lineup. I however wondered when and if the band might put of something as good as their debut.Attracting the 30+ crowd, Sam Roberts Band rocked into their new release "Love at the End of the World", which inspired the first crowd surfers of the day, some to the point of getting up at least three times! But this is the Sam Roberts crowd: true pop rock lovers, the ones that can sing along to "Oh Maria", and dance along to songs like "Bridge to Nowhere". The 2003 album "We were Born in a Flame" is still a crowd favorite and the Sam Roberts Band is well aware that their first single "Brother Down" and "Where are all the Good People Gone?" cannot go missing in each of their performance, as the crowd eats them up. With his dreamy eyes, Sam Roberts still manages to catch all the attention and rocks out hard. But would you consider it edgy? I think not.
Though the wait time was lengthy we managed to get some of the best entertainment in and out of the sole beer tent.Fenced in like animals, afraid to leave, as the lineup to get in was pushing a 4 hour wait at times, the Bud-infused beer drinkers came up with a reincarnation of the classic Slip 'N Slide. Let's call it Extreme Table 'N Slide: 4 round tables, some with a plastic covering, others with exposed wood, lined up, dowsed in water and one crazy dude sprinting 20m to slide over the tables in craziest way possible: flips, flops and many wipeouts. Ouch! This had to hurt. Just as the tables were raised to get some air involved in the tricks, the cops broke it up to much disappointment by the crowd.
Now what were we to do while waiting for STP......For those who didn't have the patience or the necessary id to enter the beer tent, the fences were the next item of attack, as at least 100 people broke through before security could control the breach.And for those guys who couldn't walk the crowds to the port-a-potties, and were teased by the many behind the fence in the beer tent, a lone, empty fence behind the media tent and adjacent to the stage was taken over by guys and girls alike. (Yeah we all saw you!)
An hour in a half later the reconciled Stone Temple Pilots took to the stage. It was as if it was a test to weed of the true fans from the fakers, as upon settling into "Big Empty" another downpour occurred. Soaked, the crowd ate up all the band had to give: every hit imaginable. "Vasoline", "Big Bang Baby", "Wicked Garden", "Lounge Fly", "Lady Picture Show", "Sour Girl", "Creep", "Down", and "Sin". With the mandatory crowd surfers afloat there was still, however something missing.... Was it the odd interstitials of Queen's We Will Rock You or Lou Reed's, Walk on the Wild Side that sucked out some of the energy or was it Weiland's failing voice? Though you can't blame Weiland's on and off stage efforts: when he wasn't singing from atop the drum kit or on raisers, or halfway though the crowd belting out "Plush", he was pacing the stage. STP played a solid set with an encore (odd for a band with second billing at a festival). If you haven't seen Scott Weiland perform in one of his few incarnations, do try to catch him while you can, cause if there's on thing for sure, you never know if he'll be back.
Following the STP set, we garnered some so-called inside information: some of the members of headliner Linkin Park were had yet to arrive in the country due to plane troubles. Knowing this, and knowing the event had a strict cut off of 11pm, and it was already after 9pm, we decided to pack it in for the day, feeling exhausted and 'dry' we set out to get 'wet'.
Experienced and soaked by Jess Watt and Corinne Copreni
Posted by Corinne Copreni
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