Yesterday night on the second night of the festival portion of NXNE we checked out Silver Dollar room’s kick off presented by Solid Gold. After we checked out Fucked Up at Yonge Dundas Square earlier in the evening we were well primed and ready for some lower fi tunes, and boy did San Diego’s Crocodiles and Vancouver’s Dirty Beaches deliver.
It was super packed, which made for pretty descent sound in an otherwise sub par venue, when we arrived just before Crocodiles took the stage in all their triple header glory (they’re playing the same time slot three nights in a row). We’ve been fans since back in 2009 when they released Summer of Hate and have continued to follow them ever since, only now seeing them live in concert. Lead singer Brandon Welchez sported his shades and a Misfits shirt and blazer throughout the set, which was a mix of their two full length albums with plenty of guitar heavy intros to boot.
Following that, Dirty Beaches played most of his debut album BADLANDS along with a few covers including Mattress’s “El Dorado”, switching back and forth between beat machine, echoey mic, and guitar. It was pretty powerful to finally see his live one man show after missing him back in the Winter playing with Dum Dum Girls, and the crowd seemed to really get down. Watch him perform one of our favourite tracks off the album, “Sweet 17”, below.
If you ever get a chance to check either of these bands out live you definitely should, in fact, both of them will be playing again tonight and Saturday during the festival, so no excuses! Check out our photos from the show below.
All photos and video taken with love on an Olympus E-PL2.