After a day cooking under a heat warning's sun, the Making Box Theatre was as comfortable as a sauna when crowds packed in to catch the final moments of Incline/Decline, and they were taking every break between sets as an opportunity to retreat outside for fresh air.
That didn't stop them from becoming the most energetic they'd been all festival when Toronto's Hooded Fang rolled in to grind out a set of as-yet-unreleased material, marking a shift to a highly caffeinated kind of post-punk sound that's propelled by April Aliermo's groove-locked bass and a loose-but-precise drum treatment from D. Alex Meeks, the latter of whom singer/guitarist Daniel Lee announced would soon be leaving for two years of schooling.
There wasn't any mention of a replacement, but the news suggests Hooded Fang gigs might become fewer and further between. That, and the group's infectious new live velocity provide all the more reason to see Hooded Fang the next chance you get — they made sure this one counted, anyway.
At a festival that otherwise made good on its promise to offer a crawl format, allowing attendees to check out all of the official programming in sequence rather than forcing them to weigh their options, technical difficulties and delays at earlier events resulted in some set overlaps that, after Hooded Fang, only left audiences with the tail end of Bad Channels to check out at the Jimmy Jazz.
Still, the former left the Making Box on a high that just couldn't be followed, serving many as the proper close to the festival.
That didn't stop them from becoming the most energetic they'd been all festival when Toronto's Hooded Fang rolled in to grind out a set of as-yet-unreleased material, marking a shift to a highly caffeinated kind of post-punk sound that's propelled by April Aliermo's groove-locked bass and a loose-but-precise drum treatment from D. Alex Meeks, the latter of whom singer/guitarist Daniel Lee announced would soon be leaving for two years of schooling.
There wasn't any mention of a replacement, but the news suggests Hooded Fang gigs might become fewer and further between. That, and the group's infectious new live velocity provide all the more reason to see Hooded Fang the next chance you get — they made sure this one counted, anyway.
At a festival that otherwise made good on its promise to offer a crawl format, allowing attendees to check out all of the official programming in sequence rather than forcing them to weigh their options, technical difficulties and delays at earlier events resulted in some set overlaps that, after Hooded Fang, only left audiences with the tail end of Bad Channels to check out at the Jimmy Jazz.
Still, the former left the Making Box on a high that just couldn't be followed, serving many as the proper close to the festival.
