Rivoli – // hater-high.com

Amelia Curran @ Rivoli

Published by haterhigh on November 8, 2013

. : : November 8th, 2012 : : . Wow. By complete coincidence, I’m posting this recording on the one year anniversary of its original performance. It’s been a busy, exhausting, mind-boggling year, so my memories of this night are faint and scattered. I remember arriving at The Rivoli a bit late, not expecting a overly packed audience and being surprised to see that not only were all the tables taken, but so was virtually all of the standing room. I had to stand much further back in the room than I was terribly comfortable doing — a short throw from the loud bar…

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Paper Lions @ Rivoli

Published by haterhigh on February 16, 2013

. : : November 3rd, 2012 : : . The problem with seeing a perfect show from a band is that every performance afterwards will suffer from comparison. That was a bit of my initial problem with enjoying the set Paper Lions played at The Rivoli in Toronto last November. After an overly generous two-set free performance at Dundas Square earlier in the year, no set would be able to quite hit all the right notes. The sound in the venue had trouble mixing just the right amount of lead guitar among the rhythm section, and the back-up vocals couldn’t seem to quite strike the right balance. Not…

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Meaghan Smith @ Rivoli

Published by haterhigh on December 13, 2011

. : : December 7th, 2011 : : . Time for the seasonable blog updates to come in, folks! First, I started off with my “re-gift” of a CBC Radio-sourced Colleen Brown recording, which leads into my next update quite nicely. You see, it was Colleen Brown who introduced me to the inimitable Meaghan Smith. Colleen opened for Meaghan about a year and a half ago and, initially, I was a little vexed at the higher ticket price necessitated by the draw of a headliner I’d never heard of. Of course, that spite melted away the second the stunning beautiful took the stage and started…

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The Danks @ Rivoli

Published by haterhigh on November 24, 2011

. : : September 15th, 2011 : : . After the positioning debacle that was the Boxer The Horse set, my view-antagonists proceeded to the bar. I was hoping this would mean a better view of The Danks, another East Coast group, widely hailed as Canada’s answer to The Strokes. Alas, another more talkative group took the seats in front of me. Depending on how they moved their heads, I sometimes got glancing views of the stage, but I didn’t have enough energy to proactively improve my position. That being said, my impression of The Danks might be as flawed as this recording is, and it’s…

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Boxer The Horse @ Rivoli

Published by haterhigh on November 21, 2011

. : : September 15th, 2011 : : . I’ve got a backlog of recordings that haven’t been posted right away for the last two months or so that I’m struggling to finally sit down and get out. The backlog has accumulated for various reasons; mostly due to time constraints, lack of familiarity, or sub-par sound quality. This first recording, unfortunately, falls into all three categories. Boxer The Horse, named Best New Band of 2010 by CBC Radio 3, played the first opening slot for fellow East Coaster Rebekah Higgs‘ record release party. With a sophomore album not quite in the can yet,…

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Danielle Duval @ Rivoli and CBC Radio One

Published by haterhigh on October 29, 2011

A bit over a week ago, I saw Danielle Duval open for Royal Wood at the Rivoli. I had only listened to part of one song on her MySpace page from her debut album, Of the Valley, on my way out the door, just to get a feel for what to expect. That song, Ambulance, was an upbeat, new wave-influenced tune fueled by thunderous drums, poppy keyboards and jangly guitar. So when the Montreal ex-pat, now living in Toronto, took the stage by herself armed with just an acoustic guitar, I was taken aback. In fact, I missed recording the first 15 or 20 seconds of her…

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Rebekah Higgs @ Rivoli

Published by haterhigh on September 24, 2011

. : : September 15th, 2011 : : . At the opening of Rebekah Higgs‘ CD release party for Odd Fellowships at The Rivoli in Toronto, she introduced herself to the audience for anyone “dragged out by their friend,” but jokingly stated that everyone else in the room was probably a friend or family member. I would have chuckled to myself, thinking it a clever self-deprecating joke if I hadn’t already seen the size of the evenings guest list (three pages!) and mentally compared it to the number of people in the room (75 seems a good guesstimate). Full disclosure: I only know the size of the…

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Ian Kelly @ Rivoli

Published by haterhigh on July 10, 2011

. : : July 2nd, 2011 : : . Ian Kelly is primarily based out of the largely french-speaking province of Quebec. As an anglophone performer, that has to be a bit of an uphill battle to begin with. Especially since the heart of his show — or at least the recent one at the Rivoli, opening for Meaghan Smith — was less the songs and more the personality that shone through in the between-song banter. At one such point, he apologizes preemptively for an experiment that transcribes a “piano song” to guitar, reminding the audience that he was “the opening act [and]…

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Meaghan Smith @ Rivoli

Published by haterhigh on July 8, 2011

. : : July 2nd, 2011 : : . If you’ve been reading this blog for a while (or worse, following me on Twitter), you probably know that I pretty much adore Juno Best New Artist (2011) winner Meaghan Smith to pieces. Her debut album, The Cricket’s Orchestra, was one of my favourites of 2010 — and is certainly my most often lent to friends, whose arms I have to twist to eventually get it back. I’ll be seeing her for a fourth time in a little less than a year next week, and although I’ve since learned the endearing between-song banter…

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Tag: Rivoli