I had to work Saturday afternoon so my Sled Island Saturday was limited to the Comedy Show at the Auburn Saloon and Wild Flag plus a bunch of nondescript garage rock acts at the Legion. Regarding the afternoon stuff that I wanted to see: I’ve heard that Ian Svenonious’ “lecture” was more of a performance piece with ratings varying between “bizarre” and “brilliant” and the beer garden situation at Olympic Plaza has been figured out. Hurrah? Hurrah!
The Auburn Saloon was packed for Comedy. Calgary’s Ryan Kukec did a great job opening the show as well as introducing each comedian—hoping to catch more from him in the future. The pair of Edmonton comics were decent though it’s hard to gauge a comedy performance when one is opening for Neil Hamburger the master of comedy as uncomfortable postmodern performance art. Both comics started off quite weak before getting progressively more crass though in this instance it worked in their favour. Los Angeles’ Brody Stevens yelled a lot and his confrontational performance had its moments of humour—both natural and uncomfortable. The big surprise however was Tig Notaro. Previously unknown to me she is a supremely funny woman. Her set was remarkably dry and cynical but hardly suffocating (I mean aside from laughing constantly)—major kudos to whoever booked her as she was fantastic and a clear highlight of the night.
Neil Hamburger’s Hot February Night is one of my all-time favourite comedy albums. In Calgary however most—or at least enough people understood the appeal of America’s Funnyman which made for a heckle-free fairly straightforward set. This isn’t a complaint necessarily (especially given that somebody punched Hamburger in the face on Friday) but you really should give Hot February Night a listen to see how masterful America’s Funnyman is at baiting and shutting down audiences. Otherwise I’m always a fan of his jokes at the expense of one of the all-time worst bands to ever grace the Earth the Red Hot Chili Peppers (“on tour stinking up the world” will probably enter my lexicon) and he certainly didn’t disappoint there. Additionally the audience participation on his classic “cranberry sauce” joke was riotously fun—berating the audience with rhetoric involving the Four Tops to lead into a heroin overdose joke? Sign me up!
Moving on to the music—with how quickly the Legion filled up on Friday I made sure to show up early hoping to be interested by any of the bands leading up to Wild Flag at 1:30 AM. I arrived in time to watch a few songs by the unfortunately named Uncle Badtouch who were roughly as appealing as their name. Indian Wars played a fairly nondescript garage set upstairs and then during the utterly lifeless bore that the Greenhornes were I went upstairs to check out the magic/CAVE installation finding that the presence of flickering lights was more fun than pretending it was the mid-‘60s via bad ‘90s guitar rock like the band downstairs.
After another garage set upstairs courtesy of Dead Ghosts I went downstairs to check out Deer Tick. Deer Tick was a band that managed to spark my curiosity before the festival. Not because of their music mind you but because they were the first band we sold out of tickets for at the store I work at. Honestly I’m stumped. Watching Deer Tick—especially after watching four indistinguishable from one another garage bands—was like rummaging through the cupboard only to find several year-old boxes of Kraft Dinner well beyond their “best before” date—sure it’s technically “food” just as Deer Tick is technically “music” but both felt completely stale and could only be considered appetizing if you’re fine with unappealing cheese. Not even a cover of the Replacements’ “Can’t Hardly Wait” could sway me but hey I’m sure they sold a lot of beer.
I stayed downstairs to secure a spot for Wild Flag which was a good idea as the Legion looked packed from where I was standing. Although I feel Wild Flag’s set on Friday was just a bit stronger the four-piece certainly did not disappoint—the sound in the Legion was great for them with every cymbal crash keyboard line and guitar note ringing out in triumph for (just a few bands aside) an absolute blast of a festival. Everything I wrote about Wild Flag on Friday stands—I wouldn’t have closed out my Sled Island experience this year any other way.
Everything considered I had a fantastic week. I think this was one of the strongest showings yet for Sled Island and I hope this is the year that really cements it as the best damn week to live in Calgary. There were some amazing bands booked and a healthy variety satisfied a decent range of people (as mentioned earlier I was selling tickets for SI shows and found it interesting to see what people picked up on). The Comedy show was a more than worthwhile addition the additional afternoon shows for those of us uninterested in the larger acts on the mainstage were definitely a hit and I really liked the festival’s use of Twitter to keep people posted on venue capacity (sure not being able to see Kurt Vile was a bummer for me but at least I didn’t head all the way to the venue to find out it was full). Applause all around folks! Sled Island: easily the best part of a Calgary summer.
