WITH/ AQUA, VENGABOYS, SCLUB3, RIGHT SAID FRED & PROZZAK
PHOTO CREDITS: JAYLYN TODD & LULU D. / FRIDAE TV
Edited/Transcribed/Written By: Lulu D.
It's not just us then, this year seems more like 1999 than 2019. So many 90's bands, groups and festivals exploding all over the world. Of course we had to get in on some of the action, growing up in the 1990's and early 2000's was so much more fun than today. The 90's were the best and not just saying that delusionally like some of the 80's era people, it's the truth. When we were teenies, none of us had the chance to see Aqua, Right Said Fred or Vengaboys live, youtube and video capabilities on cell phones didn't exist, we just started to get cell phones. The only artists in the line up we have actually seen, well....Fridae has, is S Club 3, more about that later on.
Must give a huge shout out to the organizers of the 90's Nostalgia Festival for hooking us up, so happy we didn't miss this one, it was the official launch party of the summer! Did not think arrival before Prozzak's set would be possible, there was so much traffic. However, we did reach Interchange Park just in time to catch a little bit of Prozzak's performance, and grabbed some quick shots of the only Canadian band rocking the stage!
Fridae was observing the event and performances, sad we missed the wrestling we heard it was super fun to watch. And, mucho apologies for not getting a snap of "Moe's Tavern", it was crazy to even try to get on that side of the venue from backstage. On deck shooting visuals was myself (Lulu D.) as well as Fridae's long time friend and super photographer Jaylyn Todd. The hosts were old school Much Music VJ, Rick "The Temp" Campanelli, along with DJ Tony Monaco and few others from z103.5. At one point, thought I was going crazy could have sworn to have spotted Canada's beloved grouchy sock puppet "Ed The Sock", and we did, we did see him. All in attendance behind the stage, were having almost as much fun as the crowd watching the show. Out of everyone, Rick was definitely enjoying himself the most, he was having such a great time! The next band to jump on stage after our Canadian buddies Prozzak, was none other than Britain's own S Club 7 minus four.
Fridae had seen the group in their prime, after magically obtaining wristbands for a Much Music live performance back in the early 2000's. You may know them as S Club 7 (Miami 7), a collective of 7 actors and singers from the UK on a scripted musical show, brought to you by the man who created the Spice Girls. They were fairly massive for their time, with hit singles like; "Bring It All Back", "S Club Party" and "Never Had A Dream Come True". They kept the 90's trend alive and brought all those tunes to the stage at 90's Nostalgia Festival in Vaughan, on Saturday, June 22nd.
The current group consists of Jo O'Meara, Bradley McIntosh and Tina Barrett. The crowd was so excited when the trio sang their biggest hits and sang along with them, sometimes drowning out the group. I had not expected that many people to be there at that time of day, or overall, for that matter. Fridae said there should be a good turn out but she undersold it a bit, I don't think anyone expected that many people. Hope I transcribed Fridae's words below properly, she's a character with her own language, you know what I'm talking about if you've actually met her.
S Club 3 put on very enthusiastic performance, vocals were almost on point, nobody is perfect unless they are miming the words to the track, as they would say in Europe. When I critique people it is meant to help with growth, what I see and hear, it's not bashing anyone or gossiping about personal lives like some so called media personalities. At one point during the groups set, only one speaker had Tina Barrett's vocals coming out of it on stage left and I was annoyed. The sound in the video would be affected, our mic clip broke, so there was only the built in mic to go with when Lulu was filming. She couldn't get to the sound board so I advised her to stand between the speaker that had all the vocals and the one with the music. Improvisation right? The audio quality didn't turn out too bad, check the video out here with the SC3 photos. S Club weren't the only ones plagued with some tech issues, I noticed Aqua also had few audio problems with Lene's mic not workinkg properly.
There were a few times in my life I have seen the audio department blaming the artists for crap audio, saying the bands equipment suck or they're shitty singers. Said it before and I will say it again, you can make a walmart mic sound good if you know what you're doing, production 101. You can't blame the artist for the shit sound, that is one of the things absolutely not, in the artist's control while on stage. What is the point of a concert with no sound? These things happen, sometimes it's beyond the audio crews control and sometimes it's a bunch of bellends pretending to know what they're doing. Other than that, the set was fairly smooth, they worked the stage and gave the crowd the first dose of 90's Nostalgia, readying the people for the next bands. The stage did look a little empty with only three people, an idea would be to do a new show, auditioning people for the SClub continuation and a new track to go along with it. Promise I will pitch all my ideas to studio execs when I am allowed to go back to work full time.
The festival was very well put together, divided the audience into sections by ticket packages, they even had some cool looking VIP areas. Next to grace the stage, were the veterans of the pack brothers; Fred and Richard Fairbrass of "Right Said Fred". For those scratching their heads, they had the hit song called "I'm Too Sexy" in the early 1990's. You have definitely heard it before, we did film a song for you but the audio sounded gross, could barely hear vocals. I guess sound issues were going around for everyone except...The Vengaboys! RSF kept the crowd on their toes introducing them to new tracks but the crowd did not know the Vengabus arrived and was ready to party.
The other performers were pretty good, but once the crowd started chanting "Vengaboys, Vengaboys", we knew the party had only just begun. You can see the footage of a little medley of the performance here, to fully understand the love of performance that was unleashed. Never have I ever seen the Vengaboys live and wow, so glad I had a chance to witness true entertainers giving the crowd what they wanted, a show to remember. Beach Balls were flying in the air, pretty sure those weren't the only balls flying around...It was Pride Toronto weekend and the boys in the front rows seemed very thirsty! We love everyone and so should everyone else, put the differences aside an just be chill. The world needs to view things as more of a party like the Vengaboys when they are on stage! So energetic and full of light were the quartet from the Netherlands, the groups is: lead vocalists Kim Sasabone, and Denise Post-Van Rijswijk plus male vox's Robin Pors and Donny Latupeirissa. If you get a chance go see them, they put on show and do some fantastic covers that everyone was enjoying including the boys in blue keeping thing in line. Weirdest but most amazing thing ever, was smoking my medication beside a bunch of cops without a peep.
Next up were the headliners, the band everyone was waiting for but didn't get the chanting that the Vengaboys received, but the shrill screams were ridiculously loud in unison. Thank God the nice photographer from another outlet had an extra pair of earplugs to give me, I did not anticipate the boyband decibel level of screams. As stated earlier vox was having some tech problems but seemed to have them resolved by the second track. Lene walked out with Green Hair, a blue dress and bright hot pink boots, which I loved. So much of her confidence was finally brought out once her mic was fixed and her bandmate Rene also seemed to shine. The ladies still love him, so shocked to see their reactions as they tried to grab his hand and jump on stage. Security was so not ready for that, they scrambled to kick everyone out of the pit to attend to the flying bodies floating into the pit. However, those crowd surfers had better luck than Rick, who was dropped when he attempted to crowd surf...
Wish we could have captured some aerial shots like, the larry who was being lifted in a crane box thingy. That was cool, I wanted to go for a ride (laughing). Those that know about my rollercoaster obsession, are probably not surprised by that comment. Aqua rocked their biggest hits including the forever 90's soundtrack tune "Barbie Girl". I was surprised they played the track so early on in the set, would have guessed they would play it as an encore or closer. They do have a number of tracks to choose from and they gave the people of Canada who showed up from across the country just to get their 90's fix, exactly what they wanted. The best lighting for photographs was gifted to the Vengaboys, they had the dusk magic in the background with amazing colourful costumes. This was a fabulous lineup that brought everyone back to the sounds of the 90's, including those kids whose parents forced them to come and left as new fans. Check out all of the galleries by clicking on the respective artists names below.
