June 16 - The Silver Dollar Room, located just north of College St. on Spadina Ave., opened its doors to the NXNE festivities and hosted a diverse set of rock throughout. On Thursday the long, narrow space featured live music until 4 a.m., including Chains Of Love, Crocodiles and Sandman Viper Command.

The room was absolutely packed, the air thick with the combined body heat of countless people all interested in seeing some of the hottest acts in music, a NXNE tradition with the Silver Dollar that seems almost too good to be broken.

Chains Of Love are a female-fronted group that combine 1960s surf and soul with Motown-esque vocals to create a shimmery pop sound seemingly born before any two members of the band put together. With great songs like "You Got It" and "Lies Lies Lies" it's easy to see why they're turning heads all across the musical landscape here in Canada... and why their recent self-titled 7" vinyl release is in such short supply.



The narrow layout of the room was such that it was possible to get a seat directly in front - and ten feet away - from the front of the stage, which was sadly not so for the next act, San Diego's Crocodiles.

Expertly billed as a band not to miss, the five-piece indie act attracted a crowd so massively that it was physically impossible to move - listeners had to spend the entirety of their set wedged on all sides by the concert-goers around them. Well worth the trouble, the band lived up to the hype with their rich catalogue of music, if not with their sleepy performance on stage.

Although they took the stage at 3 a.m., Burlington's Sandman Viper Command very likely had the most compelling performance of the night, quite apparently to do more with their own effervescent nature than summoning up the energy to perform.



The crowd had thinned somewhat by such time at night, however the band treated it only as space to move and breathe, a welcome change. Performing in support of their recent 7" release Rough Love, the band inspired many to dance along to their music, which sonically falls somewhere between Seattle and Hamilton in flavour.

The perfect choice to close the evening, Sandman Viper Command made walking out of the Silver Dollar at 4 a.m. a very pleasant experience, and with Chains Of Love definitely made the diminutive club the place to be on Thursday night - a sweaty, groovy dance club with just enough headroom for personality.