On Saturday, Toronto kicked off its public display of lights in the holiday season with the 40^th iteration of the Cavalcade of Lights festival. As an aside, why is it called a cavalcade? I think this was a thinly veiled attempt to improve the vocabulary of children by using a complex word that no one ever uses in normal conversation. They should just call it the Series of Ceremonial Displays of Lights Festival.

The start was a 7PM and we were a bit late, but in time to catch most of Immersion. This is a projection show, synchronized with music, where old city hall is traced with coloured lights and animations. It seems new because I had never seen anything like it before, but I don’t think it was really that cool. Although, because it’s being repeated so many times, it could be a good photo outing opportunity (plus NPS won’t be packed). And I do mean it’s repeated often, 5+ times a day for a whole month.

There was then some live music from Jacksoul, Faith Chorale, and Divine Brown. They each did 3 songs which were a mix of Christmas favorites and their own hits. It was ho-hum because we were pretty far away and I wasn’t familiar with their music, although I could recognize several of Jacksoul’s singles (but he didn’t sing them), and I did recognize Divine Brown’s hit (Old Skool Love was it?). The only band I wanted to hear was the Joel Plaskett Emergency, who I missed because they were at the beginning of the event. I had already missed them at another free concert earlier in the year; so they are apparently the missed connections band of 2006 (Keane being the previous holder in 2004).

Then it was time to light the err lights. Whew, because for some reason I thought it was going to go until 10PM. Everyone except for Joel Plaskett got on stage to sing some Christmas song and halfway through all the lights turned on anti-climatically. The saving grace was the fireworks display that followed afterwards. This was done from atop the bridge directly infront of City Hall which made it seem like City Hall was blowing up. I thought that was much cooler than doing it from the Sheraton across the street which they did in previous years.

The entire event didn’t seem very Christmas-ishy. Maybe it was the above-zero temperatures — even warmer thanks to all the people in the square, lack of snow and just being past (American) Thanksgiving. I think Mother Nature agrees with me (plus 10 temperatures in the next few days??). Also, there was a horrible choke point between the skating rink and the garden/sound stage. Everyone was trying to move one way or another but there was no actual room. That’s some bad organization, especially when closer to the stage, there was a lot of room to stand around.

Dinner was at Green Onion on Dundas, west of Bay. This place felt like a hole in the wall, mainly because there was a huge group that took up three-quarters of the restaurant. Although, in truth it wasn’t too bad. Their Thai food came out Chinese-tasting though.

Also, MTV Canada was holding a PS3 play-test, with what seemed like lots of free tickets to see Metric that night at 8PM at Masonic Temple. Too bad the two events conflicted, and I didn’t know about this until I was downtown. Also, I didn’t know that MTV Canada is just 2-3 blocks north of Bloor on Yonge!

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: cavalcadeoflights, diary, toronto