NXNE Announces Initial Line-Up featuring Iggy and the Stooges, De La Soul, Les Savy Fav, Surfer Blood, and more!

Now that all that SXSW hullabaloo is behind us, it's nice that we still have a couple of big, juicy festivals to sink our teeth into. For some, that's Coachella, others it's Lolla, but for Torontonians, it's NX-fuckin'-NE.

Just this morning, NXNE announced an initial line-up that included just thirteen acts to play at this year's festival, and already, things are getting pretty exciting.

First up? An appearance by none other than Iggy and the Stooges at Yonge-Dundas Square on June 19 for.....free! Not to mention a show the night before, same venue, by Canadian indie icons Sloan.

Also announced? American first-wave punk-rockers X, De La Soul, Les Savy Fav, Japandroids, Cold Cave, Kid Sister, Wavves, Surfer Blood and Thee Oh Sees.

Of course, De La will near the top of my to-see pile, but Les Savy Fav and Surfer Blood are two bands that should put on shows worth seeing. Les Savy Fav are notoriously excellent and enthusiastic performers, and Surfer Blood, in case you haven't heard them, created one of Pitchfork's early 2010 Best New Music'd albums. I don't usually fall for PFork's shenanigans, but Surfer Blood are pretty dang enjoyable, if you're into that high-energy lo-fi sound.

I've embedded their single "Swim" below, so that I may see you, yes you, at the show. Just try not to pump a fist to this kind of triumph.

Wolf Parade live in Toronto, April 7

I went to see Montreal howl-pop outfit Wolf Parade at the Phoenix last Wednesday, and they were fantastic. They played a heap of new songs from their upcoming LP, Expo 86, and it's only made me more excited for its release June. Watch the performance of new song "Fast Ballad" above, and read a great review of the show below.

From Exclaim!:
"We're called Wolf Parade. Thanks for having us," Dan Boeckner modestly quipped, as if every person in the sold-out Phoenix wasn't there solely to see the Montreal quartet play their first Toronto show in nearly two years. With just a couple months left until the release of their highly anticipated third LP Expo 86, fans were expecting at least a taste of the new album, but they got a heaping bowlful instead: new songs made up nearly half the set list, while the gaps were filled with fan favourites from the band's back catalogue.

The show kicked off with the triumphant stomp of "You Are a Runner and I Am My Father's Son" and "Soldier's Grin," the opening tracks from Wolf Parade's 2005 debut Apologies to the Queen Mary and 2008 follow-up At Mount Zoomer, respectively. The former album was favoured a little more during the show, with classics like "This Heart's On Fire," "Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts" and crowd favourite "I'll Believe In Anything" making up a large portion of the set, compared to the mere four songs — including the fantastic, frenetic cascade of "California Dreamer" — from the latter.

There was no shortage of good vibes going around, either: Wolf Parade's new tracks reflected, in their synth-centric lightheartedness, a move further away from the fieriness of their debut and towards a sunnier sound that grooves where the band used to lurch. A mid-set phone call during which the crowd sang to co-front-man Spencer Krug's mother on her birthday only aided the band's joyous momentum.

"Thank you to We Are Wolves," Krug said as they launched into the final song of the night — referring the opening trio's blistering 40-minute set of rhythm and thrash — "and thank you," he offered to the fans, "for humouring us as we tested out our new songs."

Any time, Wolf Parade, any time.