Live Review: Red Hot Chili Peppers at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre (4/27)
The Red Hot Chili Peppers are entering an interesting period in their nearly 30-year history as a band. They’re not quite ready to hit the nostalgic casino circuit, yet at the same time, more than a few people have turned their noses up at the sight of their name on festival posters, claiming their relevancy has passed. Even their most fired up fans would probably concede that these longtime rock funksters have gone down on the musical Scoville heat scale in recent years.
Definitely not your average 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees.
It isn’t SXSW, with its dichotomy between free tacos and megastars like Jay-Z playing impossible-to-get-into shows, but for the past 30 years, Canadian Music Week has been an important event on the industry calendar. In 2012, CMW gained Slacker Radio as a title sponsor, and the festival portion saw more than 4,700 artists representing 43 countries play 82 venues over 5 days. It was also scheduled to immediately follow SXSW, and you could definitely feel the road weariness from anyone who was involved with both. Don’t even ask about those who had to go on to JUNOfest in Ottawa! The ROCKthusiast took in a select number of showcases around Toronto the weekend of March 23-25, and I am proud to report back on what I deemed to be the Top 5 acts of CMW!
On a night where the rest of North America could see them perform on the Late Show with David Letterman via the magic of videotape, Band of Skulls returned to Toronto to rattle some bones at a jam-packed Phoenix Concert Theatre on Friday, March 30th.
The Black Keys 
