She & Him  | |
| Leonard Cohen | |
| Gary Louris | |
| STARS & MIRACLE FORTRESS | |
| Josh Rouse | |
| Born Ruffians & Caribou | |
| Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band | |
 | The Bicycles |
| The Police | |
| Edwin McCain & Low Stars |
The Bicycles August 10, 2007 Reviewed by Kristin Foster & Adam M. Anklewicz  As if Toronto indie bands weren’t cute enough, these guys had to go and release their own DVD board game. On the night of the release party for The Good, The Bad & The Cuddly: Interactive DVD Board Game, the Tranzac felt like a big rec room in your parents’ basement. Beginning fashionably late with a lackluster set from Henri Fabergé and (some of) the Adorables, players sat awkwardly in their seats instead of bopping along to the music as the audience sat at tables where there should have been a dance floor. A band that usually has great stage presence was missing the magic that endeared them to hipster hearts from Parkdale to Leslieville.They were followed by an awkward act by sketch comedy artists Holly Prazoff and Inessa Fratowski. Good sketch comedy is hard to come by and this act, although earnestly performed, still came off as a bit lame. Wearing funny dresses and making proverbial “boner” jokes overshadowed what could have been true talent. Sometimes you’re the one getting all the laughs at a party but adapting humour for a stage and an audience is an art—and these ladies fell short. Finally it was time to play the Bicycles’ board game. After receiving instructions from Holly and Inessa (who feature in the DVD), we were off! Overall, the game was fun and engaging. Everyone seemed to enjoy collecting checkmarks for their scorecards and moaned collectively when a Bicycle sent them to "practice" (their equivalent of Monopoly’s jail). However, there's a certain math to board games that helps control game flow. The first mistake we noticed in this board game were the Lose a Turn boxes. The player can choose to move in any direction on the board, making these boxes useless—players simply choose to go in a different direction rather than land on them. The pacing was a bit rushed too; perhaps the game wasn't tested enough before release. The DVD itself has its weaknesses: Despite good performances from each Bicycle and from the comedians, the sound quality was poor at the beginning and it was difficult to hear their voices. Featured on the DVD are music videos from The Bicycles’ debut album The Good, The Bad & The Cuddly. The board game works as a novelty but as a game it could have been designed much better. And last but certainly not least, the Bicycles arrived onstage and charmed the crowd with a string of new songs and a few tried-and-true ones too. Preparing to enter the studio to record their sophomore release, the band was able to test out their new songs on an audience. Though the new songs aren’t as immediately memorable as the tracks from their debut, they were still over-abundantly charming and fun. Bouncy, energetic and earnest, they did what the Adorables should have done at the beginning of the night: They got the crowd dancing. |  |
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