Toronto Urban Roots Fest finished with a flourish on Sunday

Jean Cook and The Burlington Welsh Male Chorus

I got my earliest start (after my latest night) for the third and final day of the Toronto Urban Roots Fest, and it was worth it.

Jon Langford, backed by members of The Waco Brothers and frequent contributor Jean Cook on violin, came on stage at 1 p.m. to perform songs about southern Wales from his 1998 Skull Orchard album and this year's follow-up, Here Be Monsters. The early focus was on three newer songs ("Drone Operator," "Mars" and "Lil' Ray O' Light") and the vintage "Tubby Brothers" before the musicians were joined by a few dozen members of The Burlington Welsh Male Chorus to sing material they recorded on the Skull Orchard Revisited re-do of that 1998 album as well as a few other tunes.

It's quite an amusing collection of songs in its own right, especially with Langford's witty introductions of them, but the choir adds another entertaining element. The addition of vocalist and longtime Langford musical foil Sally Timms was the icing on the cake as the small but appreciative audience of fans and choir family members were treated to "Pill Sailor," "Butter Song," "Youghal," "Inside the Whale," "Deep Sea Diver," "Come Home Tom Jones," "Tom Jones Levitation" and "Are You an Entertainer?" The choir then sang a Welsh folk song that none of us could understand, but it's apparently about how angry the Welsh still are with the Romans, according to Langford. The set ended, fittingly, with a sing-along rendition of one of the frequently-referred-to-in-the-set Welsh superstar's signature hits, "Delilah."

Twin Forks

I was much less familiar with Twin Forks, the Americana music project from Dashboard Confessional's Chris Carrabba. I arrived just in time at the west stage to hear a jaunty, acoustic-based cover of Talking Heads' "And She Was." That was my highlight of the country-folk-based set from the sextet, which I liked but certainly wasn't blown away by. The female harmonies were a nice counterpart to the frontman, and I got to hear "Blister In The Sun" for the third time during the festival (joining Violent Femmes on Saturday and a cover by Hollerado on Friday), which was okay by me.

July Talk

July Talk has been creating a buzz and playing to increasingly larger audiences, which was evident in the reaction it received on the east stage at 3:20 p.m. There's great chemistry and vocal counterbalancing going on between Tom Waits-like singer Peter Dreimanis and cohort Leah Fay, who definitely adds a degree of sex appeal. The quintet's self-titled debut album has a unique mix of indie rock and Americana, but it's taken to another level on stage and the group proved it can hold its own on a big one. "Guns + Ammunition" and "Paper Girl" may have been the standouts, but the entire set showed that July Talk is a band to continue to look for big things from.

I confess that I spent more time chatting with friends than paying attention to Jenny Lewis during her set on the west stage. There was nothing wrong with the performance; it just didn't make much of an impression.

Gogol Bordello

That certainly wasn't the case with Gogol Bordello, which was probably the most frenetic and eclectic act of the festival -- and that energy carried over to the healthy-sized crowd. "My Companjera," "Last One Goes" and "Start Wearing Purple" were standouts from the rotating cast of gypsy punk masters fronted by wine bottle-swilling Eugene Hutz. An encore was demanded and granted. Good times were had by all.

Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy will release his Sukierae solo debut album in September and he's assembled a new backing band that includes his 18-year-old son Spencer on drums. Much of the new material was on the mellow side, and the sometimes plodding delivery was, frankly, a comedown after Gogol Bordello. While the pacing didn't pick up much, and Tweedy banished the band to play solo towards the end of the set, my enjoyment heightened with such favourites from the Wilco catalogue as "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart," "Passenger Side," "Jesus, Etc." and "I'm The Man Who Loves You." Tweedy also performed: "You Are Not Alone," the title track he wrote for Mavis Staples' Grammy Award-winning 2010 album; Uncle Tupelo's warmly welcomed "Give Back The Key To My Heart;" and Woody Guthrie's brilliant "California Stars" from the 1998 collaborative Wilco-Billy Bragg Mermaid Avenue LP.

Neutral Milk Hotel is one of those bands that inexplicably flew below my radar when it was in its prime back in the '90s and I've never made a major effort to remedy that -- even after group member Julian Koster played his singing saw in my living room at a Christmas party I hosted a number of years ago. But I've appreciated everything I've heard and was happy to have the opportunity to see the influential band perform since it looked for so long like that would never happen again.

We ducked over to the south stage to catch a couple of songs by Hollerado and I was pleased to see that not everyone at TURF was watching Neutral Milk Hotel. The young Canadians had a large throng of folks eating out of their hands.

Waco Brothers

The TURF staff party was held at the Horseshoe Tavern, but open to the public, and the Waco Brothers performed for the fourth and final time to end the festival. There were no concerns with repeating songs from the first two nights, just with letting loose and having a great time. Mission accomplished.

TURF has made great progress in its two years and hopefully has established a strong enough foundation for it to become a staple of Toronto's busy summer schedule from now on.

Gogol Bordello — Trans-Continental Hustle

Gogol Bordello keeps getting more attention without pandering to mainstream tastes, and two of the latest ears the New York City-based group made stand up belong to record executive and mega-successful producer Rick Rubin, who was at the studio controls for this record and released it on Tuesday through his American Recordings label.

The band's fifth studio album, the follow-up to 2007's Super Taranta! (and last year's Live From Axis Mundi DVD), opens with lead single "Pala Tute." It's an effervescent track and continues the expansion of the gypsy punk sound that Gogol Bordello first made a name for itself with. 

The nine-piece band fronted by Eugene Hutz is exploring the world musically and makes audible stops in eastern Europe, Brazil, Jamaica, the U.S. and elsewhere on this 13-track record. "Sun Is On My Side" and "When Universes Collide" both start with gentle acoustic guitar before they gradually pick up, while "Immigraniada (We Comin' Rougher)" is essentially a punk song with a great guitar tone and angry, sloganeering lyrics.

Reggae is thrown into the mix on "Raise The Knowledge" and "Last One Goes The Hope" on the second half of the album, which is where things particularly pick up steam for me. "In The Meantime In Pernambuco" dares you not to dance, and that's a challenge you're bound to lose.

The socio-political card is thrown down hard on the final two songs, "Break The Spell" (about discrimination against the Roma people) and the title track, which promotes racial cross-pollination.

I was a bit concerned that Rubin would temper Gogol Bordello's all-over-the-map approach to its music, but Hutz and his cohorts were given the freedom to roam like the people who are still commonly (though ignorantly) referred to as gypsies.

Gogol Bordello — Live From Axis Mundi

I've quite liked Gogol Bordello's two SideOneDummy albums, 2006's Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike and 2007's Super Taranta!, but have either been out of town or had conflicting engagements whenever the New York City "gypsy punk" band has come to Toronto. I've regretted this, since I've received first-hand reports from people who've gone and said the band is incredible live.

And while I still haven't personally witnessed Eugene Hutz and his traveling musical circus, I now have a better idea of the experience after watching Live From Axis Mundi's DVD, which captures two 2007 performances at New York City's Irving Plaza. The music is frenetic and there's action everywhere, as the stage is filled with musicians, singers and dancers.

Hutz rides the shoulders of a security guard during my favourite Gogol Bordello song, "Start Wearing Purple," and he climbs up into a balcony during the first encore number, "Punk Rock Parranda." During the very extended final song, "Baro Foro," one of the female members of the group stands on a large drum being held aloft by audience members.

I sincerely hope I have no conflicts the next time that Gogol Bordello comes to town, because these shows look like a ton of fun.

The DVD extras include additional live performances and music videos for "Start Wearing Purple," "Not A Crime," "Wonderlust King" and, best of all, "American Wedding." There's also a short documentary titled "Creative People Must Be Stopped!" that features in-studio footage and interviews.

The package also includes an 11-track CD of previously unreleased material featuring six songs recorded on BBC Radio 1's In The Company Of program in March 2008, "Stivali E Colbacco" from the Super Taranta! recording sessions, "Troubled Friends" from the Gypsy Punk sessions, demo and instrumental recordings of "Immigrant Punk," and the "60 Revolutions" demo.

While nothing can match actually attending a concert, Live From Axis Mundi gives you a very good picture of what it's like — at least when my DVD wasn't stopping and starting, very annoyingly so during the bonus features. Hopefully I just received a dud disc and this isn't a widespread manufacturing mistake.