Shows That Rocked Toronto in 2013

2013 has been a super awesome year for live music in Toronto, not to mention our journeys to Governors Ball, South By South West, Pitchfork Chicago, Osheaga, and Austin City Limits. We’ve been lucky enough to see nearly every show we’d hoped for, including Kanye West last night (for the second time this year) and we thought we’d take some time to reflect on some of the most memorable shows we saw on home turf. We can’t help but brag a little beyond that, because we have to say, probably the most memorable shows we saw all year were Chromatics in Chicago in July and Pure Bathing Culture in New York in June.

Starting off at the top of the year, there was Christopher Owen’s first stop in Toronto as his self titled break off of GIRLS, Solange’s show at Danforth Music Hall (complete with synchronized dance moves before her and Dev Hynes had a falling out), and Savages Toronto debut at Horseshoe Tavern during Canadian Music Week. Then the highly anticipated (and super sold out) Jessie Ware show with MSMR opening at Opera House, CHVRCHES dazzlingly sharp set at The Hoxton, and Broken Social Scene’s truly epic closing set at the inaugural Field Trip Music Festival.

Many of the shows we saw helped to solidify our top albums of 2013, including Young Galaxy’s show at Lee’s Palace which blew us away, DIANA’s album release party at Great Hall, London Grammar’s Toronto debut at The Great Hall, and Holy Ghost!’s sweating Hoxton dance party.

Then of course there were the big shows of 2013, Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar on the YEEZUS tour (all anyone seems to be talking about today), Beyonce swinging through the air at the Air Canada Centre, Drake with PARTYNEXTDOOR, Future, and Miguel at the Air Canada Centre, and Cut Copy bringing their Aussie dance tunes to Danforth Music Hall.

Check out our photo recap of all the best shows of 2013 ordered by date below.