Life on Edge Wet ‘N’ Wild
by Kieran Grant, July 2, 1999
35,000 fans brave the stormy weather at music fest.
BARRIE, ONT. — It might have been the edgiest Edgefest yet.
Not because of the band lineup — well, Courtney Love and Hole excepted — or the mostly “modern rock” sounds they cranked out.
Yesterday’s annual Canada Day Edgefest concert at Molson Park in Barrie was turned on its ear by Mother Nature herself: Simply put, it rained. Horizontally with the strong wind. Sometimes from the ground up. Eye of a hurricane.
The sold-out show, put on by Toronto radio station Edge 102, marked the first stop on Edgefest’s two-week, cross-Canada tour. Some 35,000 fans came to see mainstage performances by Hole, Moist, Big Wreck, Silverchair, Matthew Good Band, Edwin, Wide Mouth Mason and the Rascalz.
A second Molson Park date takes place today.
The deluge let up in time for Hole’s set, but Edgefest had a stormy personality at its centre in the form of the famous Ms Love.
Hole are the first U.S. band to headline an Edgefest tour — though bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur is a red-blooded Canadian from Montreal — but they came armed with plenty of Canadian content.
“We are Helix,” Love joked after taking the stage dressed in a torn pink sequined gown and butterfly wings. The old Can-rock reference may have been lost on the young crowd as the chords to Hole’s tune Violet rang out, but they couldn’t miss the Canadian flag draped over Auf Der Maur’s bass amp, or her Maple Leaf halter top.
“We’ve got Canadian content,” Love said. “Proof that the Free Trade agreement works.”
The jingoism was left at “you’re much cuter than the Germans” as Hole tore into tunes Pretty On The Inside and Malibu.
Despite a limp run-through of Miss World, Love was off-key and engaging, clawing at herself, apparently teetering, as usual, on the verge of some emotional collapse.
Pretend or not, it made for good rock theatre as the singer and her road crew picked fans from the crowd and arranged them in a weird little menagerie behind her.
This captive audience sat tight through a version of Bryan Adams’ Summer Of 69.
Not everyone shared their patience. The crowd had whittled down by a couple thousand after Moist’s set.
It was actually the first time a Toronto-area Edgefest has been nailed by bad weather, and the results were, well moist.
Earlier, some dove for cover under any piece of plastic they could find. Others stayed put. Once the ground softened up enough, the inevitable games of mud-sliding began.
It wasn’t until loud ‘n’ sombre Australian imports Silverchair delayed their early evening set by 50 minutes — until the torrents subsided — that the temperamental weather caused any noticeable problems.
Backed by former members of Toronto group Glueleg, ex-I Mother Earth singer Edwin had the most to prove with his 40-minute set. But despite a stage presence that can only be described a superconfident, there wasn’t much to go on in the way of tunes. A little tinny, a little shaky, Edwin’s outfit can still chalk it up to opening jitters — though the material itself was a long way from memorable.
Actually, that pretty much summed up Edgefest as a whole.
As usual, Edgefest’s bill reflected the playlist at 102 — formerly and popularly known as CFNY. Both have grown increasingly mainstream and safe since the station started putting on the fest locally in 1987.
The scope has changed, and while it doubtlessly appealed to fans, it’s not necessarily a change for the better.
In fact, netting Hole and the famed Ms Love — a household name with a reputation for being volatile — gave the fest’s musical side a needed shot of edge.
Ditto show-starters the Rascalz, who deftly proved that there’s at least one important ingredient needed for a better day of music: More hip-hop. Taking the stage bang on time — there’s another way Canuck hip-hop crews differ from their U.S. counterparts — the Vancouver group got the crowd rallying, tossing in a few patriotic boast raps that were surprisingly un-annoying.
There were also traces of hope on the festival’s so-called Village Stage. Treble Charger drummed up a reaction positive enough to land them on the mainstage, and Montreal-via-Toronto outfit Bodega were, in their noisy, tuneful little way, the best rock act on the bill. Sadly, local hip-hop-popsters Len — now signed to Sony’s Work label in the U.S. and enjoying a hit down there — got the shaft when their sound-system died and they were bottled off stage by impatient fans.
Other side-stage acts included Serial Joe, Gob, Vertical Horizon and Finger Eleven.
There’s evidence more street-level rock is in demand: Rumour is another CFNY fest is planned for summer’s end in Toronto, featuring the likes of Blurtonia, Thrush Hermit, Tricky Woo and Scratching Post, along with a bigger-name headliner.