REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

Since Ladyhawk are associated with booze as closely as Cypress Hill are linked with weed (they called their latest album Shots, fer chrissake), seeing them at Yonge-Dundas Square, in the daylight was a little jarring. They didn’t have any trouble getting their rock on, with lead guitarist Darcy Hancock’s torturously overdriven tone and bassist Sean Hawryluk’s animated long hair antics reminding us that being indie didn’t used to require a banjo player and a harpist. But a handful of gestures cribbed from vintage Dinosaur Jr. doesn’t add up to songwriting, and despite frontman Duffy Driediger giving it his all, and the band sounding relatively tight, their songs felt as empty and uninspired as the B side of a major label free compilation tape from the mid-‘90s.

You expect to discover good new bands at fests like NXNE; what you don’t expect is to walk into the Drake basement for the 9pm slot on the Friday and find a healthy crowd, dancing vigorously. They’re still green, but The Ruby Coast deserve the attention — with an EP under their belt and a very short lifespan to date, the Aurora, Ontario five-piece have the zigzagging melodies and yelping high-energy gang chant vocals to keep the front row hopping. Their songs could use a little more emotional range — I found myself wondering by the third or fourth song, or maybe the seventh or eighth crash of the marching band cymbals they brought on stage, whether it was possible to overdose on glee. But subtle hints of personality including some tasty keyboard textures (that were richer than the usual default indie-pop glockenspiel setting) suggested that The Ruby Coast will be seeing sizable waves in a year or two.

With the rain starting to pour outside, I decided to give Winter Gloves a second shot after having been not quite floored by their CMW set in March. They’ve come a long way in the stage presence department, coordinating their group handclap sessions while singer/keyboardist/leader Charles F. breathlessly emotes with a sampling of My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way’s patented vocal mannerisms. The Montreal group’s melancholy dance-pop felt slightly formulaic, and they blew their momentum completely by opting to end their set with a ballad and a mid-tempo song, which killed the dancefloor. But you wouldn’t turn off the radio if they were on it, and I suspect that’s where they’ll do well.

It was obvious by 10:30 that the now-torrential downpour wasn’t letting up, so we were off to the Horseshoe by taxi to see Julie Doiron’s new material get a Toronto airing. Those occasional Eric’s Trip dates may have inspired Doiron’s new electric tunes — taking the stage with only Shotgun and Jaybird drummer Dick Morello in tow — and though you wouldn’t call them rocking, they were something else: excellent. At the risk of sounding fogeyish, it was truly refreshing to see an artist being vulnerable without the emo generation’s de rigeur self-reflexive jokes. With agile guitar playing that was never showy and Morello’s sensitive but never overpowering drumming, Doiron was cute but never infantile, and that distinction these days seems more important than ever.

Evan Dando obviously has a reputation for erratic live shows, but there were few signs of instability on display during his solo acoustic set at the Horseshoe. The front half of the room were appreciatively nostalgic, whooping as he trotted out the gems from his Lemonheads catalogue, while the back of the room chatted loudly (Plus ca change). He was in fine voice, making “It’s A Shame About Ray” and “My Drug Buddy” sparkle more convincingly than they did in their original full-band versions, but Dando didn’t outwardly register either the crowd’s appreciation or lack thereof, barely even pausing between songs. It’s hard to say whether he was nervous or indifferent, but during a brief and inspired selection of covers, he did flit between songs so rapidly some of them failed to register. (To his credit, his version of Townes Van Zandt’s “Waiting Around To Die” was both unabridged and harrowing, though the crowd didn’t appear to notice the outright desperation of the lyrics compared to Dando’s usual veiled jabs.)

OK, he didn’t do “Mrs. Robinson” or “If I Could Talk I’d Tell You” but it would have been stranger if he did. And besides, by ending his last song, Car Button Cloth’s “The Outdoor Type,” by seemingly forgetting the words and singing "John McCain must die" as well as something about the old boy’s club before ducking off stage and not returning for an encore, it perfectly embodied his career: sweet, slightly off-kilter songwriter leaves solid body of work but never quite manages to capitalize on the acclaim.

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