Preview
HIGH PERFORMANCE RODEO
Presented by One Yellow Rabbit
Runs until January 30
Big Secret Theatre (Epcor Centre)
and various venues
While One Yellow Rabbit's annual feast of pleasures that is the High Performance Rodeo has always held a special place in its heart for music – in past years welcoming such luminaries as Philip Glass, Kronos Quartet and troubadour Alejandro Escovedo – this year's lineup offers some of the festival's most music-minded programming yet.
Besides fulfilling a long-term goal of booking Laurie Anderson (who brings her solo show The End of the Moon – see the story in this issue), this year's Rodeo is turning much of its focus towards the stranger sides of rock.
Hailing from Toronto, The Hidden Cameras will take to the Rabbit’s Big Secret Theatre on January 29 in what promises to be one of their characteristic high-energy Shows with a capital S – it's always so much more than just a gig for this band. Based around the dirty hymns of lead Camera Joel Gibb, The Hidden Cameras' unique blend of self-styled "gay folk church music" with a go-go-dancer-led dance-party celebration offers a performance unlike any other.
While presenting a relatively scaled-down version of Gibb's epic vision (group membership has swelled to upwards of 25 members in past incarnations, with entire venues transformed into one of Gibb's characteristic cover-art pieces), The Hidden Cameras are still likely to overwhelm the Big Secret.
"We went out on a limb to get The Hidden Cameras this year, and it's already on the road to selling out," says Kirk Miles, the Rodeo's associate producer. "We only regret not being able to get them into a bigger space."
Continuing the Rodeo’s longtime mandate to highlight local artists, this year's festival extended an invitational challenge to Calgary's The Summerlad to create the "day in the life" musical opus City of Noise. Featuring the involvement of up to 17 musicians onstage at any given time ("Where will we get the mics?" frets Miles), The Summerlad's work, to be presented January 22 in the Big Secret Theatre, should further cement their position as one of the city's most forward-thinking groups.
In describing what to expect, Miles is cryptic. "They've come up with a rock opera. A theme piece," he says. Scary terms when discussing a rock show, perhaps, but a rock opera filtered through The Summerlad's crooked lens is something not to be missed.
For music with an experimental bent, the Rodeo has brought back its Ledgefest series for a sixth year, featuring some truly off-the-wall stuff from 20 local sound artists. And experimental musician Bob Ostertag is also scheduled to appear with Montreal filmmaker Pierre Hébert under the name of Living Cinema for a show called Between Science and Garbage, a stunning collaboration between Ostertag's everyday noise-based compositions and Hébert's improvisational films. It runs on January 28 and 29 in the Big Secret Theatre, while Ledgefest takes place throughout the festival, between performances, on the ledge above the theatre’s lobby.
Rounding out the Rodeo’s musical fare, the Big Secret also plays host to a pair of late-night Listening Parties: The Flaming Lips Zaireeka on January 21 and Frank Zappa's QuADIOPHILIAc on January 27. A musical experience unmatched by few, The Lips' four-CD set (with all four CDs played simultaneously, mind) matches all the musical heights of their better-known, less-unwieldy The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. Recently rediscovered by son Dweezil, Frank Zappa's four-channel mixes of some of his finest work offer an all-new perspective on the man's music.
Building on the enviable feather-in-the-cap of last year’s Kronos Quartet show ("Thanks to which, a lot of people started to take the festival far more seriously," claims Miles), and this year's challenging and surprisingly fun lineup, music at the Rodeo will no doubt never be the same.
For more information on Rodeo programming, check the Scan listings or go to www.oyr.org. |
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