Even working double time, Long Winter flexes muscle
Tom Beedham

Long Winter returned to its home base at The Great Hall on Jan. 10 for the first regularly programmed Long Winter of 2014, offering a platform for new bands like Weaves (pictured above) to play alongside established Toronto musical acts like The Hidden Cameras, Rae Spoon, and more (more pictures below). Photo: Tom Beedham.

If people going to 2014’s first proper Long Winter event were expecting to catch its organizers with their pants down, they’ll have realized their mistake by now.

The folks at the traditionally monthly event have been putting in double time over the past two months to supplement its usual fare with some bonus programming – just a week prior, the event invaded the AGO and took over all programming responsibilities for the gallery’s own monthly culture celebration, First Thursdays, and a special just-for-kids version of the traditionally late night affair was held at LW home base The Great Hall less than a week before that.

Instead, Year Two – Volume Three saw LW once again increase the scale of its production, threading its tentacles even further throughout the Queen Street West and Dovercourt Road building’s hallows to include a new, fifth room that event-goers could cram into and watch bands in. Before last Friday’s event, bands could be seen in the main hall and the conversation room on the same floor, basement party cave BLK BOX, and (as of this season’s LW inauguration) the street-level Samuel J. Moore Restaurant.

Scale aside, the music lineup alone brought the night’s proceedings some of the most diverse programming the series has featured thus far. Save for a last minute cancellation that made for a temporary lull between early performances, the night featured steady, often competing performances from 16 musical acts.

Highlights:
–The Hidden Cameras previewed material from their new album, Age (Jan. 21 via Evil Evil)
-Toronto rapper D-Sisive got the main hall bouncing to tracks from his new Raging Bull EP as well as older ones between comically salted asides. He threw out tributes to Corey Feldman and Michael Jackson, too.
-Elusive hardcore act Career Suicide stoked a set-long mosh pit in the BLK BOX with its current lineup and a special guest performance from Dallas Good (The Sadies).
–Weaves – accountable for the rackety half of the night’s seven-inch giveaway – delivered its sometimes dizzying, always crazy noise rock to a packed Conversation Room that ate up frontwoman Jasmyn Burke’s theatrical delivery and all the abused instruments the band left in its wake, right up to and including drummer Spencer Cole’s set-closing kit-toss.
–BA Johnston brought his self-deprecating comedy rock to the Samuel J. Moore Restaurant stage (and bar and floor and almost the street you can walk into the restaurant off of).
–Bespoken invaded Studio 3 to deliver long-form chamber music to a cross-legged, floor-seated crowd (twice).
–Ronley Teper wooed the earliest crowds up to the front of the main hall with her smokey-into-gargled à la Tom Waits vocals and a band – The Lipliners – that crammed the span of the stage.

Photos from Long Winter – Year 2, Volume 3: