Wednesday 23 November 2011

Toronto Rock - Lykke Li, Poutine and spin.

I don't have the chance to get to many gigs back home, what with working evenings and people generally being apathetic hermits these days, so I made sure to give the Toronto gig listings a peruse before I came over, in the hope there would be a few things worthwhile on while i was here. It didn't take too long to do so really, as the listings hardly mirrored the Melody Maker's in its prime and there weren't many live acts on but Lykke Li at the Sound Academy and Jay-Z/KanYe immediately stood out from the usual house bands. Alfie didn't let me down in his reactions to both suggestions - 'Lykke Li? Never heard of the cunt......and I'm not going to see that fucking idiot (KanYe)'. Thankfully I managed to persuade him to attend the former, although did he assert after listening to her that he needed to get smashed before the gig, as it was 'music for heroin people'. Right up my street then.
The venue was right on the edge of Lake Ontario and a great little place, very reminiscent of the student unions back home. I'm always whinging about the lack of gigs in those places, they always provide such a better atmosphere, so was pleasantly surprised to discover this and the sound was great too for such a small venue. We managed to catch the last few songs of the support act, First Aid Kit, a Swedish dream folk band and they were pretty good themselves. They all looked incredibly young for this stuff and completely out of it on Acid half the time, but those can never be construed as bad things really. A definite better than average support act.


Lykke Li herself was brilliant too. I didn't know what to expect as a lot of performances i'd seen from her were stripped down acoustic sessions but she brought a full band (complete with two drummers) and they really turned the material up for the live setting; the sparse lighting, smoke machines and strobes really added to 'The Show' aspect too. Aside from a few mic problems, her voice was completely controlled at all times and the duelling drummers really brought an urgency to the tracks. The set was balanced with material from both albums, along with covers of 'Unchained Melody' and KanYe's 'Power'. The former was slightly unnecessary but the latter, aided by a speakerphone, was ace and really got the crowd going. I'd say 'I'm Good, I'm Gone', 'Love Out of Lust' and 'Youth Knows No Pain/POWER' were amongst my favourite tracks, Alfie even thought it was alright too, and that's VERY high praise for him.






We stayed on for a few drinks afterwards and a shockingly nice bouncer informed us that we could stay there until we could drink no more, wich was nice. However, moments after, a more familiar arsehole style bouncer told us in no uncertain terms that we must move to another area immediately and there was no time to waste GODDAMNIT. Odd. We moved on accordingly, although as why it needed to be done with such haste was a mystery and quickly found ourselves talking to an incredibly chatty Mexican-American couple. I think both of us were a bit freaked out by how they besieged us but it's only because people are so nice, friendly and approachable here, you're not used to it at all. You kind of forget how to act to just genuinely nice, always thinking ‘What’s going on here?...What do they want?’ because you’re so used to encountering aggressive arseholes back home, who more often than not have an agenda or are just plain dickheads anyway. The guy was a Lil' Wayne fan mind and there's no excuse for that either.  Closing time was soon upon us so we moved on closer to the apartment and stopped at the Dog’s Bollocks on Queen St. I think their thing is meant to be that they’re a traditional style english pub but it’s just the same of everywhere else really- lots of TV screens showing sport and plenty of tables. And that's good enough for me any day of the week, so we had a few pitchers and watched whatever game was on that night there before heading back. Another rather good night. 

One of the many perks of visiting the Atkinson's is they both know their food, and to a high standard, so in addition to getting top notch home cooked meals, they also know all the good places to hit in the area. Now I'd never heard of Poutine but apparently its kind of Canada's national dish and rather nice too. One day we get hit by a downpour of rain, so hid in this cool little diner Alfie recommended, and I decided to sample the local dish while we were there - It's basically fucking cheesy chips. Nothing more, nothing less. And i really must tip my hat to Canada for getting away with such a poor facade. I'm sure they'll say it's not, it's this and that and tart it up but it's basically cheesy chips. Don't let them fool you.
One place where you can't be fooled is the Sushi restaurant on Queen St called Aji Sai. I always enjoy Sushi but it never ever fills me, causing me to just get a big fat greasy burger anyway, making the Sushi eating pretty much pointless, so my interest was certainly perked when Katie said how good this place was and the fact it was also all you can eat. It certainly didn't disappoint with the regards the latter. The stuff just kept coming and I certainly couldn't eat no more come the end. Top notch stuff off the menu too, unlike most of these buffet type places. Much like Mother's Dumplings, I'd definitely say it's worth hunting out if you're here.
The week was rounded off with another visit to Football at the Soccerdome (they again drew), but the highlight for me had nothing to do with the game and was in fact the 'Soccer Mom' sitting next to me going absolutely MENTAL at the referee. She was acting as if her son was like 8 in the West Park league and not 27 years old - 'C'mon ref, move!..... ARE YOU SEEING THIS?......THAT WAS A FOUL YOU HACK....Oh so you call that one?....... dick!....PLAY THE GAME, STOP FOULING YOU GUYS' and so on and so on. She kept switching between languages when at her most angered too and that was absolute comedy gold to me.
We also went for a quick few games of Table Tennis and Alfie absolutely schooled me. Them playing Arcade Fire's 'Funeral' on a permanent loop softened the blow but I only won one game out of about 9 and i could tell he wasn't going all out either. Well, not until i hit him in the face, accidentally i of course but i was rather out of reach before even that. My skills have certainly dropped since ruling the tables of Thurston back in the '90's.....



Once again though, Toronto is just an amazing place and  everyone must go, next up -  my first NHL match at the Air Canada Centre and the CN Tower!

Song for the Day - Lykke Li

Monday 14 November 2011

Toronto Calling - Football Awards, customs and soccerdomes.

Having packed (with the 'help' of Sonny throwing my stuff around) and checked-in the night before, I headed off to the Airport at about 6:15am on the Thursday morning. Quite the long journey was ahead but it proved to be uncharacteristically uneventful - mainly due to the metro being full of zombies at that time of the morning, as opposed to the messes and parades of madness that usually frequent it. My flight to Amsterdam was brief but i did at least get the opportunity to pick up two bargain bottles of 1 litre vodka for £18 and a couple of books for Alfie before leaving the UK. I also enjoyed my first experience of the Star Trek like body scanners once in Schiphol. Another passenger didn't find them quite as entertaining, she was wearing a tea cosy like hat and point blank refused to take it off to enter the booth, it just wasn't happening under any circumstances. The staff eventually caved and let her off but I really wanted to see what monstrosity was hiding under there. Disappointing.


My flight to Toronto was about 8 hours long and I was flying with KLM. Now I used to be the worst traveller in the world, i had to wear pathetic wristbands, take tablets (my parents once hid some in my munch bunch as a child, since i could never swallow the fuckers) and I still couldn't even make it to the Metro Centre without being ill. Thankfully, I somehow managed to finally grow out of all that at 25 and travelling by air has been completely fine since. Well this flight certainly changed all that, biggest pile of wank ever. The plane was ridiculously over packed, I couldn't extend my legs, the service was ridiculously slow, they'd ran out of half the food by the time they got to me, and when they did, I had to attempt to eat as if was dancing the robot by tucking my elbows in, just so i didn't keep hitting the Russian sitting next to me. To top it all off my TV didn't work either, so I had to somehow entertain myself for the next 8 hours. Class. I told the flight attendent about the TV and she responded with 'Okay, you need to find out what's wrong with it and then tell me!'. I couldn't handle an argument, so just let them get on with it. Plus she reminded me of an old school dinner lady who'd put anyone on the feared 'Wall' if they spoke out of turn, and it wasn't too long before I was arriving in Toronto.
Customs was a treat as ever, I honestly think the job of the officers there is to try and get a reaction out of you by being complete and utter arseholes. I know what these people are always like, so i decided to be extra nice and polite from the off but the woman was still instantly agressive and patronising as ever -  'How long are you staying here for?......Because you didn't fill the box in stupid. Where you staying? Toronto? That's a big place, be more specific, it's like telling me yo live in London. You don't have a return ticket to show me? You are going home, aren't you? Show me your itinerary then. What do you do in England? Taxman? Big deal' and so on and so on. I literally had to become a different person for five minutes or i'd have went mental. Fortunately, this discussion didn't quite reach the length of the 'You've put English, but you're British' argument that a customs officer had with my Dad in Florida and I was soon through immigration to be greeted by Alfie and then on the bus into the city.
I'd been up for the best part of 24 hours by the time i got to Alfie's rather nice apartment, so didn't do much on the Thursday evening.  We had bit of a walk round the city and grabbed some rather ace Fish & Chips, but saved the proper tour for the next day.
The city itself is pretty amazing and instantly loveable, it takes the best bits of England but gets rid of all the crap. No charvers, no dirty high rise buildings looming over constantly, no overcrowding and just an abundance of really cool shops, restaurants and bars on every street. All in walking distance too. You really could just live on one street it's that good. I've not had the chance to pop into most of the places but Analogue Gallery will take some beating, I literally wanted to buy every single thing in there. We set off out around 11 and were lucky to stumble across the remembrance service and fly over at the City Hall building, t'was done very respectfully and the gathering crowd even heartily sang the Canadian National Anthem at the end. After a walk around the City we stopped off for some highly recommended Chinese Dumplings at Mother Dumplings, this again was a first for me and it was absolutely incredible, and reasonably priced too. Definitely worth hunting out if you're . I still can't use chopsticks though.





Alfie had a 6-aside match on the evening in a really cool soccer dome, it was basically two astro turf pitches with a huge inflatable dome over it, given it an outdoor effect but still sheltered from the harsh weather of winter here. It even had a large scoreboard and miltant referee with ridiculous ponytail for exra authenticity too. The match finished 2-2, and as usual, the place was full of Irish. They really can't be many people left in that country, you can't go anywhere without meeting a squadron of them. We got a lift off a Canadian back and it was yet another first for me in that nobody prior had ever attempted to shake my hand without actually looking at me. He ended up slapping my wrist as clearly I wasn't cool enough to know what the fuck he was doing and it turned into a massive fail. Very English



Katie was back from Minneapolis on our return to the flat, complete with two ridiculous 1500 calorie biscuits, we decided it was best to tackle these beasts when drunk and as per the rules of staying with the Atkinson's - I had to watch the latest reality phenomenon. At least X factor US has people who can actually sing though and in Astro, probably the coolest kid in the world. The boy has skills.
We headed off to wach the England game on the Saturday in yet another brilliant place called the Queen and Beaver, very English decor but quiet and some top notch nostalgic memorabilia including some amazing Football Mundial models. Oh and once again, amazing food too. Alfie had his 'Football Awards' dinner on the night, so we went along to meet the rest of the team at the Real Sports Bar. He'd mentioned it a lot in talking and it certainly didn't disappoint. A huge place with about 100 HD TV screens all over, even in the toilets, showing different sports and the largest HD screen in North America as the centrepiece. Amazing. I could easily never leave the place on a weekend.
The dinner itself was held on a ferry, it pretty much kept going round the lake in a circle, but the view of the City, Rogers Centre and CN Tower was still pretty ethereal, even if it was just going round and round. Once again, plenty of Irish there, with everyone taking the event more seriously than anything I do in my own life, but it was all good harmless fun and Alfie's teammates were all good craic. The presentations even came with medals and trophies, this amused me endlessly but it really was a good laugh. There was a short 'casino' on afterward and since neither me nor Alfie have any interest in these things we decided to just pass our chips onto James, who had previously decreed 'i'm a lucky bastard and will probably win'; he managed to convince the table to go all in on the last hand and that's exactly just what happened. From there we headed off to a bar to watch the Pacquiao- Marquez fight, unfortunately the first bar absolutely stunk of puke but the great thing about here is that there's always another one next door so we weren't walking about too long. I thought the fight was a draw, for what it's worth. T'was a rather good night indeed.
Sunday was a purely lazy day, having spent the best part of 14 hours drinking on the Saturday I was too wrecked to do anything of great note, but I did tag along to witness Alfie and Katie rock climbing at the again rather impressive Joe Rockheads. I had zero faith in my ability to climb even the baby walls, so limited my own involvement to a strictly observational role, plus i don't think my massive feet are made for such nimble things, but Alfie and Katie both were very good, quickly scaling up the various climbing walls. The two of them claim to be naturally brilliant climbers so it's just as well, it all looks bloody knackering to me mind.



All in all my first impressions of Toronto are incredibly high and I don't think i could say enough good things to be honest. I definitely could live here.

Song for the Day - The Coolest kid in the World