“Darling, let’s go to
Brampton for Valentine’s Day.” Anyone who doesn’t already live in this suburban city was unlikely to have uttered those words and made a date last night for the
Brampton Indie Arts Festival.
Those that did turn up for the launch of the seventh annual carnival looked a bit out of place. In the plush environs of the new
Rose Theatre—the festival’s first year outside the older, vaudevillian Heritage Theatre—a slightly awkward audience wandered about, not sure if they had permission to have fun in such an environment. The interactive art installations were greeted with mild bemusement; the dozens of venue staff politely informed the indie rockers that they couldn’t drink in the theatre.
I knew something unusual was up when I got there at 8:00 PM to find the
Mayor of Brampton huddled over a
hydraulophone—a kind of pump organ where pressurized water substitutes for air—in -20 degree weather outside the venue, with a man who proudly calls himself a
Cyborglog. Her handler could be heard asking festival organizer
Friendly Rich: “So, when do you want the Mayor on stage? 30 seconds? A minute?”
The crowd was split between the fiftysomething boomers, who usually populate the venue, and their offspring, who are undoubtedly more than grateful to see some kind of culture in Brampton other than Classic Albums Live and Anne of Green Gables. That said, while all sorts of freakiness is promised in the days to come, the opening night programming likely had more appeal to the boomers than their kids.
The headliner was
Andy Kim, a CanCon staple who had huge hits in the 70s such as “Rock Me Gently” and “How Did We Ever Get This Way,” and is best known for writing “Sugar Sugar.” The man who has sold 30 million records may have been deflated gazing out at the less than 100 people populating the 880-seat main theatre—with some of the younger hipsters walking out during his first song, about how his “days are winding down.” But dammit, Andy Kim is a professional. We got the same show that the keeners saw in Oh-Kay Casino in Espanola, New Mexico last summer: an ace band giving it their all for Kim’s Neil Diamond-esque sense of pop drama, complete with the classic come-hither quivering fingers stage move. Cheesemaster that he is, Kim’s sole intention is to rock you gently and warm your winter heart. And that he did.
Geoff Berner, on the other hand, doesn’t have any Disneyfied illusions about the pitfalls of happily-ever-after. The Vancouver accordionist has a minor arsenal of anti-Valentine’s material, much of it culled from his new album,
The Wedding Dance of the Widow Bride. With a characteristically ominous outlook, Berner’s new audience favourite “Weep Bride Weep” delighted the suburban sensibilitity for the perverse.
It’s the perverse that stands out here: not the bloodless alt-rock of the
Diableros or
Uncut, both of whose rote rock bored the mainstage audience. Sometimes that perversity is direct, like the
hilarious short film parodying Hinterland Who’s Who, where a wood spider is treated with various narcotic substances with surprising results. Sometimes the perversity is in the programming’s flair for juxtaposition: a classical guitar ensemble next to a bucket percussionist (Gus Weinkauf of
Feuermusik) next to a tasty 40s Western Swing throwback (Toronto’s
BeBop Cowboys) next to
Afrobeat jazz.
Though Valentine’s Day is over, there’s plenty more perversity to come. Check out the Brampton Indie Arts Festival’s
website for more details. On deck tonight:
Marc Ribot,
Final Fantasy,
Meligrove Band,
Bicycles,
Polmo Polpo and more!
