They changed the name of Canadian Music Week, for some reason, to Canadian Music Fest. Which is not to be confused with Juno Fest, which happens the week of the Junos like Canadian Music Week used to. But it seems that Juno Fest actually celebrates Canadian music more than Canadian Music Fest does. I mean, the cover of the guidebook for CMW/F featured those Canadian music legends Sammy Hagar, Nikki Sixx and Melissa Etheridge. What were they thinking? There are so many Canadian musicians they could be celebrating instead of those three non-Canadians and by the way their heydays were decades ago!
Anyway, the best thing I saw was the Montreal band Elephant Stone, who managed to work a sitar into some amazing rock songs and made it seem natural. They were all great players, too. The drummer was doing some lovely stuff. Other than that, J. Mascis was the most memorable. He was the absolute opposite of the first time I saw him, at Lee's Palace a long time ago, when he turned his back on his audience for the whole show, and asked for no lighting as well. That was annoying. This time, he sat down, facing the audience and even took requests. He's mellowed in his old age.
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