NxNE Day 2 – Golden Isles, The Novaks, Dinosaur Bones @ Horseshoe Tavern

20 June 2009, George @ 2:56 pm NxNE Day 2 Golden Isles, The Novaks, Dinosaur Bones @ Horseshoe Tavern

Tonight was a night of firsts. Unfortunately none of them were music related. I was in mid chew of a sausage while watching two douchebags fight it out over who stepped on the other guy’s puma when another person in a clown suit tried to break up the fight. The clown was eventually the guy who got his ass kicked (obviously). All that moment needed was a random car crash and I think I would’ve gone straight home to end the evening on a high note. No car crash occurred so I had to settle for good music instead. I arrived at Horseshoe Tavern at 9pm with anticipation to catch Golden Isles, The Novaks, and Dinosaur Bones and the evening did not disappoint.

Opening the night was Montreal’s Golden Isles. Early into their set, their songs were very gritty very energized. It sounded completely out of place to me. When they changed direction and performed some of their mellower songs like ‘I Love You’ and ‘Silly Girl’, then you could see the real charm this band has. Naturally these songs would give off the impression of cliché but the hook here is lead singer Adam Feingold’s voice. His vocals can hit a low baritone. This added a sense of sincerity amidst a serious message. Some live bands are loud for the sake of being loud and vocals are never understood. Golden Isles has a leveled setup and everything worked in unison.

Golden Isles – Don’t Tell Me

Much like Nancy’s day 1 experience at Horseshoe Tavern, when I arrived at nine the place was nearly empty. But by the time The Novaks were setting up for their performance the room began to fill up quickly. Hailing from St John’s Newfoundland these guys were a small town favourite to the crowd. The majority of their songs conveyed darker vibes like ‘Rain Rain Rain’. Coming from their debut album, ‘Destroyer’ was the strongest song of their performance. They damn near blew the roof off the place with this song and the crowd could feel it. Most people were pushing and shoving in the front for a shot at getting some eye candy of the band. They had the best live performance I’ve seen so far at NxNE.

The Novaks – Leave Me Alone

Photo by Andres Hannah-Suarez

Dinosaur Bones were a relative unknown to me until early this year. These guys have been getting a lot of good buzz and I can see why. I gave their songs a few rundowns and came into the evening looking forward to a solid performance. Lyrically their material is deeper and darker than the previous and that was clear this evening. As they progressed through their set list, the group got more comfortable with their own sound and settled in nicely tempting and sampling the crowd with reflexive signature and percussion changes. Audibly the vocals were lacking however. Having just come from listening to The Novaks; the guitars sounded slightly too dominant. They rounded out their set with a few songs from their upcoming debut album due this fall.

Dinosaur Bones – Royalty

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