Washington Tour (2011)

Washington Setlist

How to Tame Lions
Want (Rufus Wainwright cover)
Cement
The Hardest Part
The Belly of the Whale
Swallows
Navy Blues
I Believe You Liar

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■ NXNE
North by Northeast (or NXNE) is an annual music and arts festival held each June in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The festival’s main focus is live music, particularly emerging talent. Acts that have had break out appearances at NXNE at small venues early in their careers include Lizzo, Daniel Caesar, Run the Jewels, The Lumineers, Grimes, Gary Clark Jr., The Arkells, Feist, and Billy Talent.

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■ Megan Washington
Megan Washington is an Australian musician, songwriter and voice actor. She previously released music mononymously as Washington, as well as Megan Washington, before assuming her current moniker Meg Washington in 2022. Originally performing jazz music, her style shifted to indie pop and alternative rock.

Flashback: Wednesday, June 15, 2011, was the official kick-off for NXNE 2011, in Toronto, Canada.

That day, we were signing in for early registration, and can officially see NXNE shows. I remember public pricing was reasonable, I think for the all-you-can-eat price for all five dates were below $100. That meant you had access to all the shows, even though, in reality, you’re probably only going to see, at most, three or four shows a day. Plus, we found out, it got cheaper by the time Saturday rolled around!

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NXNE: Wednesday (June 15, 2011)

Thursday, 16 June 2011 at 07:43 PM

Technically, NXNE starts on Wednesday, even though concert-wise, there weren’t much going on. For some reason, I thought it would be much busier, but my schedule was manageable; despite even missing the Union Station performances because I had no idea where the bands were setup.

Still, caught JF Robitaille at Market Lane. There was a little delay because there was no power until the city guy came by.

Robitaille played a brief set, ran out of songs, but played on a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Blues Run the Game”.

Other notable things, there were loads of kids at the park, eating their lunches with their teachers. The type of folksy tales of love and lost by Robitaille went over the heads of the toddlers.

Wednesday evening was spent at Supermarket (near Spadina and College) with Jon Bryant, from, Canada, but his heart is in Seattle, Washington. He sings softly about his experiences, and even wrote a song about Ontario, on a bus ride to and from the city.

Everywhere were listed as Everywhere and Ross Mundo were like power rock. Played “Uh Oh”, as well as other songs from their self-titled album. Highlight was a cover of The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.

TimeGiant had brought their fans, who enjoyed rocking out to these guys. They seem like hard rock/borderline metal, and they love performing on stage. They look and sound like they are having a great time, but unfortunately, their music wasn’t really my cup of tea.

I was mainly at Supermarket to see Washington. Missed her in Minneapolis, when she unfortunately, fell ill. So, finally got a chance to see her last night.

It was just Megan Washington and her keyboard, so, as I suspected, she didn’t do her more upbeat pop songs, “Sunday Best”, “Teenage Fury” or her DiVinyls cover, “I Touch Myself”. She did a pretty emotional version of her song, “Swallows”.

As you can see from her setlist, she did a Rufus Wainwright cover song. The story behind that is pretty funny, as were all her little stories, but apparently Wainwright dismissed himself from Megan’s company by stating, “Excuse me, but I have to pee. From my penis.”

Glad to have caught her, I’ll be seeing her again tonight at Lee’s Palace with Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield. Should be a wonderful evening.

[ To be continued… ]