.jpg)
As you all know, the Phog Lounge in Downtown Windsor hosted the first ever Phog Phest to commemorate it's acceptance of the title "best live music venue in all of Canada." I was lucky enough to be one of the many (strange.. or colourful) people in attendance at this event.
I had intended to write this post eons earlier, but I seem to have some sort of really weird cold (SWINE FLU!??) that has lasted since the day before the spectacle until this very day. So, please excuse my lateness and overall incoherence. I’d like to blame any mistakes on my cold and not my general laziness, so you are all just going to have to go with it, damnit!
By the way, if you can’t tell who I am by the former paragraphs, that means that you don’t already know me. Hello, my name is Kaitlyn, and I’d like to apologize for the wait, but I can’t churn out posts at the speed of our regular blogger, my Ny-Quil addicted, insomniac SUPERBESTfriend.
The Phog Phest was a pretty big day for me. Being from Amherstburg (insert farm jokes here) I had never been to a concert (Does Elmo Live count?). I know. It’s pretty sad. But, since I have (a) wonderful friend(s) who have decided to educate me (if forcibly) about life outside the farm, I found myself in a car on the way to Downtown Windsor listening to incredibly chiseled two man-boys screaming out Weezer’s El Scorcho.
Since I’m a masochist and enjoy giving people fodder to make fun of me with, I’ll tell you all something about myself- I’m terrified of cities. Traffic, people if Downtown Windsor has it, I’m afraid of it (except a surplus of gays and lesbians- not scared of them). So, it was an adventure in itself getting there (I flinched every time we had to cross a street.)
But it was all worth it once we arrived at the makeshift stage and were greeted by Ron Leary’s sideburns and the sounds of acoustic guitar resting upon the shoulders of a HA-monica player by the name of “Mr. Chill”, though by the time we got there, the set was almost done.
Next up was The Square Root of Margaret, out of Chatham.
After that, the ‘Phest was moved to inside the Phog Lounge, where we are not allowed, being too young to drink. So I got to explore Downtown Windsor, something which I have never done before (…so many cars). We had a lunch/dinner/midday type meal at the Black Kettle Bistro, a little café style restaurant on some street somewhere near the Phog (I have NO sense of direction, for the record) which served the best thin crust pizza I have ever had.
One of my favourite bands to play that day was Green Go from Guelph, Ontario. Not only did I like their sound (sort of techno, with lots of synth) they had a FEMALE SYNTH PLAYER, a really cool one. She wasn’t just there to look pretty, like some talentless pop group/brothels (or ULTRA-massage parlours..). She not only played the synth, she also sang! Damn… she was cool.
The second-to-last band I saw that night was The Arkells, who were probably my favourite. I’m not sure what you’d describe them as. Heavy enough to be rock, but they also had a harmonica… just listen…
(This is where the audio files go!)
Ballad of Hugo Chavez - Arkells
Old Fashioned Morphine - Ron Leary
Brains For Breakfast - Green Go
Lastly (well for me, anyway- yay, curfew!) was the headlining band whose introduction went something like this:
“Please welcome, Holy F!”
And then the crowd yells “Fuck!”. Ah…. censorship.
There’s really no way to describe them if you haven’t heard it. It’s all instrumental, and mostly synthesizers. Basically they have five guys on five synths in a circle and they just go crazy. It’s like the soundtrack to a seizure, or a frat party.
Unfortunately, that was the last set I was able to see, as I had to make the journey back to my little town.
So ends the much-delayed first post.
More to come?
Kaitlyn
