As we wrap up our NXNE coverage, we wanted to give you one last chance to grasp a taste of what it was like to be in Toronto for one sweaty week of music. Check out the best images we took of NXNE (ignore the poor composition and low resolution; we’re very DIY).

Toronto’s Spiral Beach knows to throw a party. Beach balls are required but forget your shoes.

As a wrap up to this NXNE-rich week on TransCanadaRadio, we’ve compiled the very best of the great music we saw and heard over the course of the week.

Here are the top 6 bands that all of us at TCR agree were the very best of the best, in no particular order:

David Martel

I went in to see David play with my mind as a nearly blank slate, only having listened to a very short clip of his stuff via his Myspace. But armed with the praise of my friends, I checked him out at Sunrise Records on Thursday, the first day of NXNE and I can honestly say that this guy blew my mind.
Here’s a video of David performing one of my new favourite songs “Stay In” at Café Lola Rosa:

The Wet Secrets

One would think that marching band costumes combined with B52-esque vocals would be far too over the top, but these guys really pull it off. I was absolutely enthralled by their funky beats and brass solos not to mention the cool majorette costumes — very slick. This Edmonton based band really pumped up the crowd and got everyone dancing by playing original songs like “Secret March” and the hilarious “I Teabagged Myself (With Two Really Fucking Heavy Cans Of Paint)” — got a lot of laughing and chant-a-long from the audience.
Here’s a video they put together of “Get Your Own Apartment”:

Rebekah Higgs

The Halifax-bred musician plays within the borders of folk-tinged yet she isn’t afraid to infuse her work with experimentation, incorporating vocal loops and electronic flourishes like her musical inspirations Bjork and Radiohead. She has a wonderful voice and a big guitar. You are doing yourself a disservice by not checking out her cd.
Here’s the official video for Rebekah Higgs ‘Parables’:

Spiral Beach

As Doug said: “Pretty much from the moment they took the stage, they had a packed and sweaty crowd screaming and jumping until they could nary jump and scream any more. I particularly enjoyed the pylons, the speech bubble, and the ET finger-touching moment with the crowd. Check these guys out before they become so big you can’t get as close to the stage as we were last night (check the Flickr feed for evidence).”
Here’s the very, very cool official video for “Made of Stone”:

The Hoa Hoa’s

These Toronto natives certainly represented for the hometown crowd. There music is a combination of groove and evil: you just want to dance and/or punch someone in the face. Their guitarist was great — loud, crunchy, articulate playing — and their bassist set her amp on fire. Major points for the predominance of hollow-bodied guitars.
Here’s the official video for “New Love Too”:

Julie Doiron

What can I say about Julie? She’s my favourite and she didn’t disappoint. She played for a packed-solid club and had the audience singing along to nearly every song. On top of that she was a delightful entertainer: watching her, you knew that she was giving her all and that scores huge with me.
Here’s the official video for “No More”:

Doug’s ‘Impressions’ posts gave me an idea — now that my NXNE hangover has passed (caught up on sleep, did endless loads of laundry, sewed my poor, abused travel bag…), I’d like to talk about a few of my experiences and sum up my time at NXNE in Toronto. Alright, here goes. Doug style.

**Wifi is damn hard to find in downtown Toronto** Seriously. I could not believe how difficult it was to find wifi free or otherwise! As a blogger, it’s likely I should have secured several places from which to blog. It was just ridiculous. More than once I found myself sitting on the sidewalk outside of a random apartment building err… tapping into someone else’s unsecured network or sitting on the floor of the Holiday Inn facing a very specific direction in order to keep the weak signal connected. Bah, I say. Bah!

**I really like 70’s-esque funk/pop/psychedelic** Yep. Turns out I like psychedelic music a whole lot. It seems that some of the acts I enjoyed the most at NXNE all had elements of psychedelic pop or funk: The Hoa Hoa’s, The Wet Secrets, Spiral Beach… all totally awesome bands. This was a learning experience for me. I never knew this about myself. I feel like I’ve grown as a person. Now I can listen to the B52’s and grow out my beehive unashamed and rooooooooam if I want to! *totally grooves*

**I’m David Martel’s biggest fan** I know! Sounds so stalkerish. But seriously? I can’t stop listening to his album I Hardly Knew Me. I can’t recommend this guy enough. I found myself this morning wishing I had the lyrics and chords so I could sit down and jam along with the cd. Great stuff. Here, go buy I Hardly Knew Me for yourself. I’ll judge you if you don’t. I’ll question your commitment to good music.

**Moshing is still as fun as it was 10 years ago.** That’s pretty self explanatory, isn’t it? Man, jumping wildly to awesome music never loses its cool.

**Packed clubs are HOT.** This is not Paris Hilton’s ‘hot’, this is, like, face-melting hot. At one point Doug and I actually completely drenched ourselves and each other with ice water to try and not die while dancing in with the swarms of hot, sweaty people. It was pure insanity, I tell you.

**BlackBerry’s are terrifying. And quite vulgar.** So I’m sitting in my favourite restaurant enjoying some delicious shrimp and chicken pad thai and a nice glass of white wine and enjoying my sunshine-y seat by the window when all of a sudden a giant walking BlackBerry comes along and throws himself at the window directly beside me and starts grinding the window and rubbing his scroll ball. I laughed and choked and checked to see if my heart had exploded. Thankfully, I survived the attack to witness, only five minutes later, at least 7 more giant BlackBerrys parading by the window waving and shaking their qwerty keyboards crudely at passers-by. I nearly ran out on my bill to chase them with my camera to nab some photos for our sister site BlackBerryCool.com. The BBCool guys would have loved it!

**Yes, bring more than one pair of shoes to NXNE** When I bought these shoes, I though “Wow, it’s like I’m walking in bare feet! These shoes are so comfortable!” And after 4 days of walking and rain and clubs and beer covered floors and moshing, I was like “Wow. It’s like I’m walking in bare feet. These. Shoes. Are. Awful.”

**My ears are still ringing, also.** You can say that again! Wait, no, please… say that again?

For me, NXNE has been a blur. A late arrival last night, Old Testament-style weather and Internet problems makes me wonder how I’m going to survive the rest of the festival. Here’s some quick thoughts on what I’ve seen so far:

**Don’t plan major travel on Friday the 13th** Seriously, I don’t know how we survived in our ‘83 Yugo as flash flooding and concentrated blasts of electricity battered us along the highway. Only the desire to rock kept us alive.

**Plan to dance on Friday the 13th** All the bands playing at the Silver Dollar Room had one goal in mind: sweaty booty grinding. A special nod goes to the lead singer of Oholics for bringing his Happy Mondays inspired Swedish dance moves to Canada.

**Swedish bands are weird** On that note, it was quite a trip to see Oholics. They describe themselves as a six-piece psychedelic electro-rock band, but you have to think of them in terms of The Hives meets INXS meets the Yardbirds. I mean, they have one member of the band dedicated to playing two tambourines at once and a sitar, as elctro-wails whirled around him.

**Band of the Night: the Hoa Hoa’s** These Toronto natives certainly represented for the hometown crowd. There music is a combination of groove and evil: you just want to dance and/or punch someone in the face. Their guitarist was great — loud, crunchy, articulate playing — and their bassist set her amp on fire. Major points for the predominance of hollow-bodied guitars.

That’s it for now. Off to a Vice-sponsored BBQ and then the Horseshoe for the CBC tract. Follow our exploits on Twitter and Flickr!