LUCIDMEDIA

Hillside: An Electric Weekend of Music

Written by Jonathan Gates Tuesday, 28 July 2009 10:03

The Hillside music Festival ran its 26th year since its humble beginnings in 1984, when members of the Guelph community got together to plan a music festival to take place in a field on a Hillside farm site. It never was actually held at the Hillside farm, but rather moved at the last moment to the Riverside Park bandshell and three years later to an island in Guelph Lake where it still takes place today.

Hipsters, yuppies, groupies, grandparents, parents, and their children all made their way in droves across the causeway to the island. Like the crowd, the soundscape of Hillside comes from all over the world, representing all sorts of lifestyles and experiences. Folk, indie, rock, punk, electronic music, hip-hop, country, jazz, blues, dance, spoken word, and much more was represented in over sixty musical acts. Concert goers could have their pick. Diversity is a theme emphasized throughout much of Hillside. Unfortunately, the erratic weather completed the theme with wind, rain, lightning, and periodically a baking sun.

Also, this somewhat limits how much one person can take in over the course of a weekend, but I’ll fill you in on what I can.

If I were to describe the experience in short to you: electric, eclectic, an all around blast even if a little hectic. The Hillside line-up can sometimes be intimidatingly esoteric with lots of up and comers as well as music from all corners of the world. This can lead to you to stumble on your new favourite band, one that you would likely not catch on the radio. 

One problem you will face at a festival of this scope is that, unless you have absolutely no preference for any particular sound in music, you’re also bound to catch acts that don’t sit with you too well. The flipside of that variety is that you should at any time have three or four different acts to choose between. In that spirit I’ll do my best to talk about acts that stood out.

The main stage started the weekend off right with Xavier Rudd. Coming from all the way from Australia, Rudd’s set was a heart-pounding, blues-infused, with deeper grooves and even deeper bass. A consummate multi-instrumentalist, Rudd takes a seat in the middle of all his instruments which collectively form some sort of musical cage. Didgeridoos, drums, microphones and various other musical accents surround him as he sets a guitar on his lap and begins to play. The soulful tones of his guitar and his steady, soaring voice emanate out into the fresh Friday night crowd who bob and sway in synch with the pulse of the drums and bass of Rudd’s backing band.

USS (short for Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker) drew a huge crowd to the Island stage Friday night with people shoulder-to-shoulder standing on the tables. The DJ and songwriter team of Human Kebab and Ashley Bo-Schultz put on quite a performance. Described in the Hillside program as a show that “harkens back to an old-school yet neo-vaudevillian atmosphere,” USS offer a fair appraisal of themselves. They were certainly neo-vaudevillian in form, pulling off many stunts in the course of their performance that got the audience really hyped-up such as Human Kebab scratching his turntables with Ashley’s face. Their live performance was definitely one of the more hysteric ones to hit the Island over the weekend. Musically, the performance was high energy but didn’t break any new ground or seem to land any sharp hooks. Still, this seemed to be a polarizing show for people; it was either “loved it” or “hated it” that you got when reminiscing about your favourite shows around the campfires. Seek them out and listen for yourself, you may find you feel differently.

The Tallboys were a truly outstanding act. Representing the annual Guelph Jazz Festival, the Tallboys were the best kind of ambassadors for jazz. The virtuosic skill of the three veteran improvisational musicians - Kevin Breit on guitar, Matt Brubeck on cello, and Jesse Stewart on drums - resulted in vibrant compositions. It was clear that the Tallboys were given over to the music as was the crowd which sat and soaked up the performance. Two standing ovations, one before, and one after the encore were the best way the audience could thank them for an amazing performance.

Green Go was another major contender for highest energy set of the weekend. With a sound vaguely reminiscent of LCD Soundsystem, the Guelph-based electronic dance rock group laid down a solid set on a foundation of disco drums and crunchy-sweet synth. Unfortunately, they were slated to play early Saturday afternoon which might’ve kept some people from dancing due to lack of alcohol or having recently woken up from the previous night. Green Go still made the best possible show of it, shaking up the stage and forming a bouncing dance mob in the process.

On Saturday evening the Island Stage was host to a hat trick of solid Canadian music that carried the crowd for three straight hours. Though each unique in their sound Library Voices, Woodhands, and The Arkells went up back to back to back, playing to a tent so tightly packed you barely even had room to sweat or breathe. To dance all you had to do was let your neighbours move you. With synth-pop to good solid rock, the crowd’s energy was good and constant.

Sunday was a day not so kind to the crowds. Already mired from the weekend’s near schizophrenic storming, a torrential downpour struck in the early afternoon accompanied by an electrical storm which set at least one good solid bolt of lightning dead on the island. Rumours bounced around that people had been struck by lightning, but this was never validated.

One thing that is certain is that electricity on parts of the island was knocked out. And, right before Clues played, a lightning bolt landed just outside the tent of the island stage followed by a deafening crack. The monitors on the stage had been blown. But Clues went up in spite of this setback and still rocked the house. With haunting atmospheric song to start their set after the worst of the storm had passed Clues eased into a solid performance filled with vocals that shifted from breathy to emotional shouts, guitar that staggers impressively between melody and metre, and richly layered percussion. Well worth checking out live.

It might not be pure music, but the ‘spoken word’ act of Shane Koyczan and The Short Story Long often felt like the work of an anarchic hip-hop artist. Over melodic backing Koyczan charmed a crowd with mental and verbal dexterity. Humour and heart in equal parts, it drew a crowd that Koyczan himself noted was unusually large for his art.

The tone for the evening was beginning to take a much more subdued form than the previous two evenings. Aside from some excited mud surfers the crowd was notable more low-key as afternoon gave over to evening.

Patrick Watson, a four man art-rock outfit out of Montreal, hit the main stage Sunday evening and captivated the crowds with a cavernous sound, of echoing rock tinted sometimes with Tom Waits sensibilities blended with what one audience member loudly proclaimed was “angelic” vocals. Watson himself quickly dispelled the rumour that he was even somewhat angelic.

Final Fantasy, the solo violinist Owen Pallett, took the reins of the main stage from Patrick Watson as the sunlight faded from the sky and the first trickle of tuckered out festival goers tapped out and went to see how long they’d have to wait to get their cars pulled out of the muck. Those who stepped away missed a short and passionate set.

As Pallett began to play the rains returned, but many stayed out in the rain enthralled by Pallett’s soothingly ingenious layered strings. As bolts of lightning touched down again and the wind began to blow sideways in the midst of the third song of Pallett’s set, the stage crew started looking to pack the show in but Pallett shouted at them to let him as he drew his strings into a frenzy. The climactic finish of that leg of his performance was met with a near instantaneous stage blackout as he bowed. All in all, the island was left ragged, rugged, and a muddy mess. Much like the weekend pass holders. But that seems to be the stress of cramming in so much music and so many people onto a little island for a weekend. Just like any good house party, the cleanup is never easy.