Rock and reflection at the CN Tower

Toronto writer Helen Spitzer was at the pre-NXNE show at the CN Tower, where she met musicians and music fans who see Toronto in new and surprising ways. Here’s her dispatch from atop the city.

My day this past Wednesday began with turning down a free Porter flight to Montreal, and ended with a magnificent night of rock at the top of the CN Tower in Toronto.

Truthfully, I could have used a mid-week fling with another city to refresh my love of this one, but rock shows at the tower are a rare and legendary occurrence: witness Spiritualized’s “highest show ever” back in 1997. I missed that moment. Sticking around offered me another chance to be part of music history in this city.

Like a lot of the wide-eyed music fans in the Horizons lounge at the un-rock hour of 6 o’clock, I am as giddy about the unfettered view of Toronto as I am about the bands playing: spunky new arrivals the Balconies; Manotick-via-Montreal’s Hollerado and veteran locals the Meligrove Band. It is glorious to be ushered through the mercifully short security line and past a gaggle of 40 eight-year olds to the designated show elevator — the only one looking directly out over Lake Ontario. “Enjoy the view,” smiles our young operator, clearly pleased that the staid tower is busting loose for the night. “My elevator is the best one.” I enjoy her sense of ownership of the elevator, and her obvious pride. She doesn’t regard the tower as pompous and uncool, like my friends and I did in our 20s. Our elevator operator is of the generation of the Lit-Up Tower.

The show itself is symbolic of the current generation taking on Toronto on their own terms. The tower they grew up with is not the dorky, over-hyped symbol of my 80s childhood. In their Toronto, the tower is part of the backdrop, just one of many things that make the city something you want to explore. When the CN Tower began to light up three years ago, it was reflecting back this new wave of city-love. Look around, it suggested. Get hungry, discover more. Stop apologizing.

Of course, getting into this severely restricted-capacity show is a feat in itself. Sari Delmar of AudioBlood, the hosts, has had to charm skittish CN Tower management over a period of seven months to make the show a reality. Clearly the headaches are worth it. Though the crowd is sparser than necessary, everyone in the room is giddy to be there. At 6:45pm most people, performers included, are pressed to the glass enjoying the golden light settling over the island. We’re immediately rewarded with a view of a plane landing on the mind-bogglingly short airport runway.

“First thing I did when I got here was lay on the glass floor!” says Jacquie Neville, vivacious guitarist and singer of The Balconies. Their early set of stripped-down minimalist rock and disco bass has set the bar high. Afterwards, we walk the length of the windows and beyond the lounge to check out the OCAD building. “You can’t see our house from here,” she says. “We’re east-enders.” The Balconies are young, and have only been Torontonians since September. Neville hasn’t yet been to the island. We gaze down on the Roundhouse where they recently played, observing that much of the waterfront seems designed to be seen from above.

I next encounter Alysha Haugen and Magali Meagher, of local Weezer tribute band Sheezer. Haugen, also a grassroots show promoter, surprises me by saying this is her third time here this year. “I’m from Saskatchewan,” she explains, adding the tower is the destination of choice when family visits. She turns and gestures north across the city; I notice all the trees. “The sprawling expanse of Toronto will always blow my mind,” she says. She and Meagher have been watching the planes since they arrived 20 minutes earlier. “I used to live in a house where people were preoccupied with potential disaster,” Meagher says, “and we did this calculation if the tower were to fall over whether our house would be crushed.”

Her words ring in my head as Hollerado begin their frenetic set. I start to think about our precarious position, 553.33 metres in the air, especially as members of the band climb their amps and play from the window ledges. My mild unease is echoed by Randy Lee, formerly of the Bicycles, now violinist with Jim Guthrie and Lily Frost, and there as a guest of the Meligrove Band. He recalls being terrified during a childhood trip to the tower. “I’m still kind of terrified,” he admits. It’s at this point the rock show seems to loosen up the room: Hollerado’s classic grubby rock demeanour contrasts the stiffness of the uniformed servers, and highlights the gleeful absurdity of the setup. The band starts to somehow look right framed in the window against the drapes and the brilliant blue sky.

As the sky finally begins to darken, I take a walk around the perimeter with Stuart Berman, fellow music scribe and frontman of The Two Koreas. He guides my eye west along the rail lines, past where the tracks split and stopping at his condo. “At first we had a view of the whole tower,” he says, “but then that other building went up.” I’m reminded that thousands of Torontonians sees the city this way — not from the height of the tower but from the balconies of their highrise buildings. I’m always surprised to see rooftops, whether from the AGO stairwell or the top of a building, but most of Toronto is growing vertically, at the city’s edges. From the 21st floor Berman can look both north and south — and down to the great swath of the Gardiner below. “I find it soothing,” he says. “I did grow up near the 401. Highways are underappreciated for their calming effects.”

For the Meligrove Band’s blistering set I head to the eastern edge of the lounge, as the financial district below falls dark. Randy Lee conquers his queasiness and turns in some vicious violin licks. I spend much of the set staring at the office towers, unable to identify many buildings other than the TD Centre and the Royal York. I see a blaze of light in the distance and realize I’m looking at the billboards of Yonge-Dundas Square. My eye is drawn along the lights of traffic on the Gardiner as the expressway peters out eastward. I’m hypnotized by it all. The band’s set crashes to a triumphant close and it’s over.

As I look for the exit elevator a song about the CN Tower pops into my brain. It’s not Owen Pallett’s ode, but a 1977 song by Toronto punks The Poles. Lead singer Michaele Jordana’s voice is both wavering and urgent, bleating: “CN Tower! CN power!” She sings about the tower of old, symbol of domination and control: “I could feel the CN Tower pulse / Its lure beamin’ into my brain.”

The song was the counterculture’s backtalk to the tower, barely a year old then and plunked down into a city whose underbelly they were still uncovering. But the city’s grown up and around the tower now, along with several generations of exuberant kids finding new ways to make it their own. Some of them were at the show Wednesday night. I hear the words of the Poles’ song differently now — not as a kick against the city but a declaration of love. “Take me to the tower / Turn on the power / I’m yours, baby.”