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I am no longer a Virgin Festival Virgin!

The weekend of weekends has now come to an end and we, the entire MuchMusic.com team, are beat. We’re sipping our coffees with bags under our glazed-over eyes and are trying to mentally digest what the eff just happened to us.

We ran from stage to stage, through a little bit of mud here and there (Kat had to repeatedly change her socks), and, well, it can take a lot out of you. But we saw some great bands, some greater fan enthusiasm, and greater still, some serious on-stage drama during the Oasis set.

We’ll still be posting a few more pics and reviews of things, but for now, check out the links below for all your Toronto VFest ‘08 needs - and if you weren’t there, you’ll see why you should be come next year, yo.

Peace out!

VIDEO RECAPS
Day 1

PICS & REVIEWS - DAY 1
Foo Fighters
The Kooks
Bloc Party
Against Me!
MSTRKRFT
Flosstradamus
The Fratellis
Spiritualized
Thunderheist
MGMT
The Constantines
Let’s Go To War
Shudder To Think
The Airborne Toxic Event

PICS & REVIEWS - DAY 2
Oasis (and the Oasis attack)
Moby
The Pigeon Detectives
Paul Weller
Stereophonics
Shad
Secret Broadcast
Silversun Pickups
Rock Plaza Central
The Weakerthans
Danko Jones
Paper Lions
Winter Gloves

(Pigeon Detective Photo above by Wendy)

9:10pm - Oasis is running a bit late thanks to a delay that started back with Silversun Pickups ~5pm.

9:20pm - They start off their set with Rock ‘N Roll Star and then bust out their new single Shock Of The Lightning as well as The Masterplan, Lyla and Slide Away.

9:55pm - Halfway through What’s The Story Morning Glory, someone climbs up from backstage (which must have been quite the feat, considering that even “all access” wristbands were banned from the area during Oasis’ set) and pushes Noel Gallagher from behind. He faceplants into one of the monitors and the rest of the band walks off stage. WTF. Concert over??

10:08pm - The band returns, seemingly unfazed by what just happened - absolutely no comment from Noel, who just busts out my favourite song that’s got him on vocals, The Importance Of Being Idle. No plans to finish up What’s The Story Morning Glory I guess. Next is Wonderwall, immediately followed by Supersonic.

10:20pm - Noel’s now back on vocal duties, singing Don’t Look Back In Anger with the help of about 10,000 fans.

10:27pm - Noel’s singing again, and this time it’s a new song, the one that’s on Dig Out Your Soul called Falling Down and appears as a remix by The Chemical Brothers. F**k I love this song as a ‘rock’ version!!!!!

10:32pm - Wow, Liam just announced that this is the end of their set, which worries me cause it’s 30 minutes earlier than anticipated (110 minute set was the plan). They’re playing The Walrus (The Beatles cover), which is a known encore song of theirs. Maybe this is really it?

10:38pm - Oh boy, this may really be the end of the set. It wouldn’t surprise me if a band that’s already as temperamental as Oasis would end early because of the earlier accident. I guess this will be this year’s “Flaming Lips Incident”, except this time it was entirely a fan’s fault. I’m gonna bet this is on YouTube later tonight!

(Photos by Wendy)

When I entered the Bacardi B-Live tent to get a taste of Moby’s sure-to-be-epic 90 mins DJ set, I had completely underestimated just how epic it really would be. The dance-ready crowd was packed in there so tightly, the heat from all the bodies was unbelievable. I instantly started sweating and I had yet to dance to a single beat.

Crippling heat aside, the little vegetarian bald man sure knew how to work the crowd, playing mainly classics by mixing tracks like Basement Jaxx’s “Where’s Your Head At” and Underworld’s “Born Slippy” along with some of his own ditties. The crowd was going buck wild, sweat and all. I actually had to vacate the premises a few times just to get some fresh air and to feel a cold breeze, but it turns out I’m a wuss since everyone around me didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass that they would surely soon keel over from dehydration and exhaustion - it seemed they wouldn’t stop for anyone or anything, not even for a performance by that Oasis band.

(Photos by Soja and Wendy)

Wow. Just wow. Alberto had talked to me before about the absolutely explosive energy that The Pigeon Detectives‘ frontman Matt Bowman unleashes while performing, but pretty much nothing could have prepared me for the sixty minutes that I just enjoyed. As they were the last band of the weekend to play the TD Stage, the Leeds, UK band started their set a bit late, putting their fanbase in dangerous am-I-going-to-miss-the-start-of-Oasis territory. No matter, because the UK flags were fully waving and the crowd was bopping along in a sweaty mob throughout the entire set.

Matt Bowman has a boundless energy the likes of which these VFest stages has never seen - it’s really a shame that The Pigeon Detectives weren’t playing on the main stage, because a lot of people missed out on what was (IMO) the best set of the weekend. And Oasis hasn’t taken the stage yet, so that’s a ballsy statement to make, eh?

Matt oscillated between scissor kicks and high jumps as he and the rest of the band barrelled through tracks from 2007’s Wait For Me and their new album, Emergencies. There was tons of crowd interaction as Matt slowly tugged at his shirt, revealing QUITE a hot body beneath his clothes. He was whipping his mic around so furiously that I thought he was going to lasso someone right in the eyeball, but he’s seemingly mastered the art of lassoing, cause there were no accidents. At some points there were metres and metres of mic cord spinning in the air for over a minute at maximum speed, and he still managed to catch the mic in one hand with enough time to start the vocal bits.

And then there was the punting of open, half full water bottles into the crowd and “Triple H” signature move of gargling a bunch of water and then spewing the mist up in the air while arched into an acrobatic semi circle. Ridiculous!!

(Photos by Wendy)

(Photos by Wendy)

OMG, I found my new favourite person. Where has Shad K been all my life? I mean, I knew that his video for “The Old Prince Still Lives At Home” is amazing, but why the eff was I slacking on hearing more? Talk about a smack in the face like, “get on your music game, wendy.” Fine. I learned my lesson with my favourite set of the weekend - no lies. No wonder he’s been shortlisted for the Polaris prize.

Shad is immediately likeable. He drops goofy pop culture references and throws out impromptu freestyles just for kicks. He dons a guitar to slow things down a bit (”do you guys like love songs?” he asks before launching into his version of The Fugees’ “Nappy Heads”) and then grabs his mic to swagger around the stage. When you hear his beats, there’s no way you can’t nod your head. Shad’s got a sick beat fever, and the only cure is more bounce.

I love when an artist can really capture the soul of old school hip hop, and Shad gets it totally right. Plus, I gotta say that he had the most hype crowd I saw at Vfest - and he was on a side stage. I thought the Foo Fighters crowd would have been insane but this audience put them to shame, and gave me a little more faith in Toronto fans. Seriously, all weekend I was like, “where is the energy?”.. well, I found it.

In conclusion, I loved Shad’s set. If by some chance I’m not actually the last person to jump on this train (and you are), check out his MySpace to hear some tunes, including some of the tracks he performed, like “Compromise”, “I Don’t Like To”, “Rock To It”, and of course “The Old Prince Still Lives At Home”.

(Photos by Wendy)

With a Welsh flag waving in the air, the Stereophonics emerged to a roaring crowd opening their set with The Bartender and the Thief. The guys played songs from their first album ‘Word Gets Around’ to their latest ‘Pull The Pin’. The crowd got into with sing a longs to great hits such as Have A Nice Day, Bank Holiday Monday and Superman.

Front man Kelly Jones performed a solo version of Maybe Tomorrow that had the whole crowd going nuts and singing along! The rest of the band then returned to play other hits including A thousand Trees, Mister Writer, Local Boy In The Photograph, Traffic and Pick A Part That’s New.

They closed their set with their 2005 hit Dakota which had a lot of help from the audience and just made their set an enjoyable one to watch. Overall they were great to see and I was glad that I had the opportunity to see them live. A big thanks goes out to
Enrico for helping me out with the track titles. Check out some pics I snapped during their set.

(Photos by Alberto and Trevor)

Fresh from Calgary as the winners of the What Feeds Your Hunger contest, apparently beating out over 300 bands from across Canada, Secret Broadcast rocked the Oh Henry side stage. And I must say, the ladies loved it. Especially when lead singer Matt Lightstone started taking off his jacket while stating, “It’s f*ckin’ hot!” which was followed by a estrogen-filled onlooker to yell, “Take it all off!”

Sadly(?), the Secret Broadcast stayed fully clothed, but they still managed to heat up the stage. The band sounded great, looked stylish as all get out and the crowd (the biggest I had seen at the Oh Henry stage all day) was loving every minute.

(Photos by Soja)

Silversun Pickups got a bit of a late start earlier today on the main stage, but that didn’t stop them from tearing through a blistering set of songs from Pikul and Carnavas, plus one song that must be new (Panic Switch) cause I don’t recognize it from past setlists or albums. The quartet sounded terrific as I watched them from backstage (weeee!) and I’m really happy to hear that they’ll have a new album of material to be released in 2009.

Fritz, the band’s sound guru, was kind enough to write out the band’s setlist for MuchMusic.com after their performance! Thanks Fritz!

Setlist:
Well Thought Out Twinkles
Panic Switch
Rusted Wheel
Little Lover’s So Polite
Future Foe Scenario
Kissing Families
Lazy Eye

(Photos by Trevor and Wendy)

All I can say is, thank God for music festival sidestages, because I fear that without them, bands like Rock Plaza Central would not get the stage time they rightfully deserve. If you haven’t heard of them, you MUST check them out. Toronto-based, they have had considerable recognition from Pitchfork with their most recent album, Are We Not Horses, ending up on various “Best of” lists back in 2006 and 2007.

The 7-member band (but only 6 were performing today?) has an extremely well-rounded sound with violins, accordians, banjos, and at one point, even spoons(?)! But this ain’t your grandpapi’s folk music - it’s funny, current, touching and refreshing. They haven’t released a new album since Are We Not Horses, but I just got to listen to some new material live and it was stellar. Although my personal highlight was when they started into the chorus of “How Shall I To Heaven Aspire?”, repeating, “I want to be a shining example.” Infectious and just that: a shining example of great Canadian indie music.

(Photos by Soja)