Downtown Calgary • June 25-29

The City Streets at the Marquee Room
Opening the BeatRoute showcase was Edmonton’s own City Streets, who delivered a near-flawless set after a month-long hiatus from performing. The room was cold before the Streets started and was glaring hot by the time they stopped. It was the perfect chance for the band to try out some new songs before their upcoming two-week tour of Canada and the upper Midwest, bridging gaps between soul, punk, and Neil Young-style guitar-workout rock. A few choice covers sent the set into overdrive and won the critical Calgary crowd over.

Yo La Tengo at the Mewata Field MainStage
I must admit I was a little unfamiliar with Yo La Tengo before seeing them in the mid-afternoon heat on the outdoor mainstage—and I had no idea what I was in for. Live, this band is a torrential downpour of noise and guitar experimentation over tight, repetitive, almost Krautrock-esque rhythmic loops.
And Guitarist Ira Kaplan is easily the best live guitarist I have ever seen. The tuning pegs, the volume knobs, the pickups, the cable, the amplifier, all play a crucial role in the sound blaring from your instrument, and Yo La Tengo has left me pretty much convinced that six-strings are a thing of the past. Kaplan managed to carve out melodies by throwing his guitar over his shoulder, around his body, and into his ribcage.

Broken Social Scene at the Mewata Field MainStage
I’m not the biggest advocate of Broken Social Scene—they did, after all, turn “indie rock” into more of a description of a genre than a musical ethos, stagnating the popular Canadian music scene in the process—but live they are nothing less than cause for celebration. With a setlist consisting of requests from fans backstage and in the audience, BSS played their most well-known songs at near-painful volume as the sun set on the prairie behind them, the sky turning purple-orange. Tracks like “K.C. Accidental” were triumphant jubilees, and the sight of seven bodies onstage, as happy and ethereal as the music they’re playing, was one of the highlights of the festival.

Wire at the Legion
Although I expected more from these post-punk legends, Wire fed off the anticipation of the crowd and spewed out their newer songs at jet-engine volume. Wire, as always, came straight to the point: driving punk rhythms, dark chords, all dressed in black. The crowd moved along to it, and the floor of the Legion turned into a sweaty mass of eager fans calling out for classics like “12XU” and “Pink Flag,” but for the most part Wire shelled out tracks from the upcoming Object 47.