An Electrifying Scene at Mosaic Music Festival 2008

MRTs were jam-packed. Walkways filled with energetic pedestrians. Eventhough we didn't make it for all the Mosaic Music Festival gigs, just only a few shows have made us to conclude with a favorable verdict. Despite the large crowd packed with music buffs who came to support their desired bands, Esplanade was rocked by these savvy musicians who participated in the festival. I'm impressed, we're impressed, and I guess the rest will feel the same way too.

As we are walking towards the ticketing counter to collect our tickets for Broken Social Scene, the soothing sound of an acoustic act attracted my attention with his rhythmic vocals and melodious guitar tunes. I turned back and stood by to listen. It was vAcance on stage. We didn't stay long for the show because the BSS gig was about to start, so, we were left with no choice but to leave. Sad to do so, cos' these guys play good music and they are good people.

As we sat down on our respective seats, the crowd started coming in so quickly that the hall was filled up in just minutes. A hall filled with BSS fans and lovers, a massive scream & shout intermission was held to get the group to come out to the stage. Not too long after, the lights went out, and a commentator started announcing the line-ups that won't appear for that evening's gig. I can't remember all of them, but all I heard was Feist's name. What I can tell you is, the ones who appeared for the gig was Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning, Justin Peroff, Andrew Whiteman, Charles Spearin, Jason Collett and a couple of sessionists which I didn't get their names. (need confirmation...anyone?)

In seconds, the Canadians rushed out to the stage and grabbed their instruments and started rocking the stage with notable tracks including Ibi Dreams of Pavement, 7/4 (Shoreline), Fire Eye'd Boy, Superconnected, Lover's Spit, Stars and Son, and songs from Kevin Drew's Spirit If album Backed Out On The..., Farewell To The Pressure Kids, Fucked Up Kid and Tbtf.






Each and every single track they played on that evening was astonishingly amazing. Embarrassed to say, my eyes were wet when they started off with the first strum on their guitars, the first pluck on the bass, the first touch on the cymbals, then came suddenly, the trumpets and saxophone.

The band did improvisations on several songs at the end, and numerous experimentation with their sessionists, filling in some trumpet and saxophone leads to the songs they played. They did great, and the crowd was all so supportive that all gave out their hearts with thunderous cheers and screams for the band.

Drew did a little more interaction with the crowd than the rest of the band mates. He fooled around with his band mates, cracking jokes to the crowd, and getting the audiences on the floor to participate asking for 30-second scream and sorts.

To conclude, it's 2-hours of pure addictive sound that leads you dig for more and more and more.
We left the hall when the boys got off the stage. Not too sure whether they returned back on stage to do an encore, but, we need to catch our bus! While on the way out, we saw a short performance from The Great Spy Experiment. We have talked about the band in our previous entries if you're interested to know what we think about them. It was an acoustic set, so the music sounded a little different from their records, but it's all good.

Well... it's a waste we couldn't catch the rest of the shows. So if anyone of you would like to share with us your experience at Mosaic, do drop us some comments.

Thanks a bunch.
sir gila.k