Japandroids / Two Koreas / Little Girls
El Mocambo, Toronto, ON July 16

By Cam Lindsay

The truth is, you couldn’t have squeezed another body in for the much-anticipated return of Japandroids to a city that seems to have adopted the west coasters as its own.

Kicking off the night was the leading local blog curiosity Little Girls. Josh McIntyre and his crew have made tongues wag with a couple of EPs, but this night proved that their gothy, lo-fi hum sounds so much more vibrant and fleshed out in a live setting.

Considering they’ve never had the chance to tour properly, the next act, Toronto’s editorial-heavy Two Koreas, have done plenty of work honing and droning their sound into an ardent post-punk machine, to the point where you forget they were journalists before musicians.

“We just wanna fucking rock out,” announced Japandroids’ Brian King, as he and compadre Dave Prowse finally took to the stage for their headlining spot. Any questions as to whether the Van City rockers could match the intensity of their debut album Post-Nothing were answered quickly with astounding approval from the ecstatic crowd.

Dropping a generous number of f-bombs and completely focused on “rocking out,” a nicely buzzed King was determined to treat the crowd to a good time, despite egging on the Leafs Nation by boldly yelling “Canucks rule! Leafs suck!” Amidst strobe lighting and fan-powered winds, the battered duo – King still on the mend from a perforated ulcer and Prowse nursing a “totally fucked up” right hand — played their distorto-garage anthems with a reckless energy, never losing control as they powered through an orgasmic “My Heart Sweats” straight into a pounding “Darkness on the Edge of Gastown.”

Showing their appreciation, the pair threw out dedications as often as the congruent exclamatory “woo!” By the time they knocked out signature tune “Young Hearts Spark Fire” and Mclusky’s “To Hell with Good Intentions,” the guys were bona fide heroes to more than 400 sweaty onlookers.

That they couldn’t do another encore because of Prowse’s mangled hand was hardly a disappointment, because at this point so many hearts sparked fire that anything more and the place would have burned down to the ground.
Annotations of an Autopsy - The Reign of Darkness
Blessure Grave - Judged By Twelve, Carried By Six
Magnetic Fields / Laura Barrett
Hillside Inside Featuring Owen Pallett, Ani Di Franco, Basia Bulat, Bahamas, Hawksley Workman
The Golden Filter / LA Riots / Junior Boys
Hollerado - Record in a Bag
Orphaned Land - The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR
Pantha Du Prince - Black Noise
Watson Twins - Talking To You, Talking To Me
Buzzcocks - Another Music In A Different Kitchen / Love Bites / A Different Kind Of Tension
Sade - Soldier Of Love
Yukon Blonde - Yukon Blonde
Steve Kaldestad - Blow-Up
Galactic - Ya-Ka-May
Gil Scott-Heron - I’m New Here
Dawn Of Demise - A Force Unstoppable
Janine Stoll - Melancholia
Stygian - Fury Rising
Shining - VI — Klagopsalmer
The Kandidate - Until We Are Outnumbered
Troll - Neo-Satanic Supremacy
Meshuggah - Alive
Dark Fortress - Ylem
Massive Attack - Heligoland
Fear Factory - Mechanize
Reckless Kelly - Somewhere In Time
Arsis - Starve For The Devil
DevilDriver / Suffocation / Thy Will Be Done / Goatwhore
Asobi Seksu
James Blackshaw / Gary Higgins
Lil Wayne - Rebirth
Light This City - The Hero Cycle
Lightspeed Champion - Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba - I Speak Fula
Georgia Anne Muldrow - King’s Ballad
Droids Attack - Must Destroy
Hot Chip - One Life Stand
Ellen Allien / Various - Watergate O5
Through The Eyes Of The Dead - Skepsis
Pierced Arrows - Descending Shadows
Rob Zombie - Hellbilly Deluxe 2: Noble Jackals, Penny Dreadfuls and the Systematic Dehumanization of Cool
Pawel - Pawel
Children Of Celebrities - Stereo Bang Bang
Midlake - The Courage Of Others
Guns N’ Roses
Julie Doiron / Attack in Black
Tegan and Sara / An Horse
Nouvelle Vague
Arch Enemy / Exodus
Between the Buried and Me / Cynic / Devin Townsend Project / Scale the Summit
Fucked Up - Couple Tracks
Magnetic Fields - Realism
Strong Arm Steady - In Search of Stoney Jackson
Harvey Milk - Harvey Milk
Basia Bulat - Heart Of My Own
Ihsahn - After
Living Sacrifice - The Infinite Order
Ihsahn - After
Steve Earle / Joel Plaskett
Scuba / Various - Sub:Stance
Make Me Young - Make Me Young
Taking Dawn - Time To Burn
Postdata - Postdata
Woodhands - Remorsecapade
Buraka Som Sistema / Various - Fabriclive 49
Beach House - Teen Dream
Los Campesinos! - Romance Is Boring
Various - Born Again Funk
Wetdog - Frauhaus!
Coolzey - The Honey
Rel!G!Ion - Revelations 1
Buraka Som Sistema / Various - Fabriclive 49
Chicago Underground Duo - Boca Negra
Cars & Trains - The Roots, the Leaves
Morton Feldman / Milton Babbitt / Phoenix Ensemble - Clarinet Quintets
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