Toronto Music Scene

           Every since Woodstock, the outdoor music festival has been a long outstanding summer time tradition.   However it seems in recent years, these all day celebrations have been dwindling in attendance.
 
            Perhaps it was because The Rogers Picnic was also happening on the Sunday, or maybe the summer has been over saturated with music festivals, or perhaps its because there are no longer rock bands that can draw in big numbers, but Wakestock was not as big of a draw as it deserved to be.

             The idea behind the concert is simple.  Combine the summer sport of Wakeboarding with the genres of music associated with it.  For the most part the day was filled with pop-punk and hip-hop.
            

              Considering that Wakestock was thrown out of the town of Wasaga Beach for all of the partying, this year’s event was rather sombre.  Fans casually sat in the designated beer garden enjoying a drink or two while watching the various wakeboard competitions.  The music stages where for the most part rather relaxed until Goldfinger took the stage Saturday night.  Things really heated up when they played their song Mable and invited various members of the audience to come play onstage with them.  This led to a fight of words between security and John Feldmann resulting in the band leaving fifteen minutes before their set was to end.  Even though their set was cut short, it still was one of the top highlights of the weekend.            

    Other Highlights included De La Soul who put on a great show for a very receptive audience.  Perhaps one of the better parts was when the lengedary trio began to jokingly harrass a city worker cutting branches off of a tree about 100 feet from the stage. Ill Scarlett also a great show on Sunday, perhaps drawing in the biggest crowd of the day.  For most, the biggest draw of the weekend was for The Miss Reef Bikini Contest which was hosted by The Salads Mista D and Goldfingers Darrin Pfeiffer.            

    The only real low point for the weekend was the turn out for Sunday.  By the time Story of The Year hit the stage, the audience had dwindeled so much you could have easily fit everyone into Lee’s Palace.  SOTY did not let this bother them.  Instead they put on a high energy show filled with the crowd singing along and Bass player Adam Russell crowd surfing while singing.  
          
     By the end of the weekend, far too many Torontonians missed out on some great performances from Crush Luther, Die Mannequin and Moneen.  Hopefully next year more people will come out for what was truly a wonderful weekend on the island. 

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