One Night Stand II

For a second year in a row some of Vancouver's best came together on New Years Eve to play some covers, drink some booze and have a ton of fun.

I was asked to set up a photo booth for the evening, which ended up being a source of great amusement and hilarious photos.


It was truly a amazing night (I even played cowbell/tambourine for a few songs, and sang Hey Jude with the ensemble on stage at the end of the night).

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT ALL THE PHOTOS

and for kicks, here's the video that I shot of the band/ladies covering M.I.A.'s Paper Planes:

A Day At The Ceeb

On the 4th of December (which is actually my mom's birthday! Happy Birthday Mum!) I spent ...around 6 hours at the newly renovated CBC Vancouver building, which they opened up to the public for a day!

The main goal of the day was to (at the prompting of Sas) find, and have my photo taken with, Ian Hanomansing(h). In addition to this I spent a lot of my time in the Radio 3 studio broadcast, watching Said The Whale and Hannah Georgas perform live to air, and to the visitors to the building.

I also finally met up with Bob from VancouverIsAwesome.com as he was being interviewed for Grant Lawrence's show.

It was a pretty awesome day/a total geek out looking behind the scenes and meeting some great people (plus Chris Kelly got me my R3 t-shirt and touque!)
All of the photos from the day can be found here: www.mcavoy.ca/CBCOpenHouse ... and here are a few of my favs:

Islands Disappear

My lovely friends Said The Whale had their Vancouver CD Release Show this week at St. James Hall, complete with Hannah "Gorgeous" Georgas opening for them.

It was an excellent show with many friends and family and some of the Vancouver music scene elite...

CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL OF THE PHOTOS!










CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL OF THE PHOTOS!

Dan Mangan Live @ The Cultch - Videos

"Robots"


"So Much For Everyone"


"Et Les Mots Croises"

What Darlings, The O'Darling...

Busy busy busy for a Sunday evening in Vancouver.

First I headed to the Railway to see Matt Epp perform again. He was just as great as the night before and I'm glad I went! Had to miss
Ann Vriend to jump over to the Media Club for show #2...




By the time I got there I had missed Benny Schütze, Said The Whale, Aidan Knight and only caught the last song by Hey Ocean!... From what I hear it was a free-for-all of Vancouver's indie music scene. Dan Mangan was in the crowd and got called on stage, performed two songs and then it was on to the main act...
The O'Darling.

They are a pretty amazing band...apparently originally from Victoria, but based in Toronto now. They had the entire crowd on their feet, many of them dancing. Aidan joined them on stage for a few songs too. I'm excited to see him perform at Dan's CD Release show on Friday. By the end of the evening most everyone's facebook and twitter statuses changed to praise for the band and the evening.
Here are some shots from the love-fest at the Media Club:

The Grassy Knoll Under The Wooden Sky...

After a very close game of softball, Mr. Tyler Bancroft was kind enough to drive a few of us over to John Rogers Park in Vancouver, where The Wooden Sky was playing to a crowd perched on the hillside.

I saw these guys in Toronto a few years ago, but sitting watching the sun go down with 100 other people, kids on the swings, dogs and bikes everywhere while the band played, was pretty amazing.

And on top of that they were joined for a few songs by the glorious Debra Jean Creelman!

Here are a few of my shots:

Floating Just Offshore...on English Bay

The initial plan for the day was The Beach, to get relief from the heat...but when an invite comes along to float on/jump off/swim around/bbq & drink on a BOAT in English Bay, you drop everything and go...

Here are some photos I took with my cell phone... Yup. That was the only one I brought with me. (We managed to get 4 musicians, 2 photographers, an actress and a tv guy on the boat.):

Junofest: Day Two...

Dear "The Media Club",

Please get better lights.

Sincerely,
Christine McAvoy

Day One: Friday March 27th.
Start Time: 8:00pm
End Time: 2:30am
Locations: The Media Club, The Backstage Lounge, Fir St & 7th at 2:14am

RUN DOWN:

Now that my distaste for the lack of proper stage lighting is out of the way...
I got to the Media Club in time to miss the line up. Which was lucky because on the way out, there was no getting in. It was, as they say out here "a gong show".

I saw Shawn Hlookoff (HULL-ook-off). There were lots of screaming girls. To me, he sings like a gimmicky cross between Justin Timberlake and John Mayer, but I dunno. Not my cup of tea...I didn't even take photos. (well, one, but it's nothing special).

Said The Whale...oh how I love you. And I am so happy the room was packed. Government Heart was my favourite of the night. I needed Dave Vertesi for a Goodnight Moon dance party though.

After this, the executive decision was to say bye to STW and leave to get to the Backstage Lounge in time for Maurice. The bus/walk was too slow to catch Laura Smith, which I was sad about.
We got there with a minimal wait outside and sat and chatted with the boys pre-show.

Vince Vaccaro came with 3 of 5 Maurice-s on stage, which was cool. But everything was running late and the set was short... still listened and took photos.

Maurice was a dance party. All the friends, and friends of friends, were there and I loved Love is Love (go figure).

Day Two ends with getting heckled by drunken idiots on the way home.
Can I Get A Witness?

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PHOTOS: www.mcavoy.ca/junofest - Day Two

Junofest: Day One...

[[note: I really should have blogged about this as it was happening, but seriously...4 nights of not getting home before 2am takes a lot out of you. I'm still impressed that I got some of the photos up during this weekend.]]

Day One: Thursday March 26th.
Start Time: 4:00pm
End Time: 3:30am
Locations: Granville Street/Westjet Street Party, The Media Club, Megabite Pizza, Cab

RUN DOWN:

I went with intent to support my ever favourites: Dan Mangan and Said The Whale, and stayed for every single performance that afternoon/night.
-The Dudes were hilarious and so fun to watch and coined the phrase "LONG ASS TENT", referring to the city block sized performance tent. This could be hear shouted throughout the weekend.
-Dan Mangan was as amazing as ever...Josh McNorton seems to think that the girls and myself made him blush with all our shouting.
-Said The Whale was next. The ladies and I snaked out spots up front and made new friends while establishing our dance area. It was hard to see Spencer though, due to the amazing lights on the stage. Love the Red Rocket.
-Jon and Roy...Dawn you were right...it IS Jon Middleton. (Whom once gave me a Sitka t-shirt for, you know, being awesome.) I met their manager and promo guy and am giving them photos..nice guys.
-Hey Rosetta! I finally got to hear them live and loved it. They are touring across Canada. Go see them. Josh Ward = so nice.
-Hot Hot Heat...gave me a beer for giving them paper to write their set lists on. Funny.

After this, the whales etc. went to the media club. I have no idea who was playing. I just needed to sit. Which was great because once the place cleared out we danced up a storm.

And this is only day ONE people...

Check out the photos here: www.mcavoy.ca/junofest

Said The Whale, live at HMV!

It was a dark and stormy early evening... :)

Said The Whale was at HMV the other day to perform for free for the announcement of the performers for Junofest and other Juno related things. It was pretty cool...they were on CTV live (obviously didn't see it) and got on the news later on on CBC as well.

The set was quick but they managed to play quite a few songs! Here are a few photos...

www.mcavoy.ca/STWatHMV

Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Pop!

Here are the photos from the Christmas concert with Hannah Georgas, Dan Mangan, Said The Whale and Hey Ocean!:
Jingle Bell Pop - Photos!

Sugar Sugar

Definitely one of the more interesting Said The Whale shows I've attended...mostly with the staff of the bar, but the guys were great, Maurice was great and Sylvie was also awesome. Some other guy played, but we wont discuss him.

The photos are up here: www.mcavoy.ca/sugar

Enjoy!