Just a backyard bash

Sliding open my apartment door, I step onto my balcony and am instantly surrounded by light and noise. It's long past sundown, but my fingers glow an eery blue, basking in the fluorescent light bouncing from building to building. Advertisements don't adhere to any set of hours, this glow is omnipresent. 

The noise is usually traffic, tourists, Toronto. Tonight, it's more than that. A text message floats into my inbox, announcing the headlining band is hitting the stage. Applause thunders in confirmation. I slip back inside, out the door, into the elevator, past the concierge, and swiftly exit. 

The noise is half a city block away, and as I move closer it sounds less garbled and more like music. Finally as I turn the corner, the band is in my sight: the Black Lips have taken the stage. It's Thursday June 19 and the second night of the annual music festival North By North East. This year, the festival has set up a free stage in Dundas Square. The space is an admittedly terrible piece of public  to host a show in: Jack Astor's, Guess, and the Hard Rock Cafe each add an extra brand of patio pop to the mesh of noise in the air. But it's what I call my backyard, so it's hard to turn down this caliber of free show. 

Melissa Auf Der Maur, who recently announced she's putting out another album with Courtney Love as Hole, has already played. So have Burning Brides, Xavier Cafeine, and local indie pop darlings Spiral Beach. The square will host Wintersleep and the Cliks tomorrow, Japanther Saturday. The Cool Kids will close the free stage on Sunday night. 

The Black Lips play refreshingly average dance rock for about an hour. At the front of the stage, nifty yet nerdy seeing glasses are everywhere, a trend only beaten in numbers by the male moustache. The women are going crazy. Faux-lesbians are kissing and petting between the bassist and the lead, security is chasing a go-go band-aid straight off stage. When the guard finally grabs her, she jabs her feet up and swings them around the guard, turning her defeat into a crowd pleasing high kick. 

The escapades are entertaining, but less than could be expected. If one's to believe what the band tells their record label affiliates at Vice, they recently got chased out of India by the boys in blue, and/or the Tamils, for a slew of reported reasons, like getting naked and making out with one another, which apparently doesn't go over so swell with eastern authorities. 

None of that happens tonight. The back of the crowd is bored, the pedestrians are irritated, the security is annoyed. The band says goodnight, girls still jumping over the barricades and rushing towards the stage. I escape around the corner. The walk home is short.