When it comes to music that supports a great cause, iheartthemusic is a huge advocate! So when we saw that STAND Canada – an organization made up of students who got together to raise awareness and champion for Darfur – were throwing a benefit concert at Tattoo, we knew we had to be there. The event took place on April 2^nd and had two incredible bands playing in support of this charity, We Are The Take and Birds of Wales, with all tickets sales going towards the charity.

The night started off with a band that are no strangers to iheartthemusic as we were introduced to them back in February when they opened for the Arkells and The Waking Eyes. We are talking about We Are The Take who played an incredible set that night. These guys never fail to amaze us,  however, it did take the audience some time to warm up to them as the floor was virtually empty until the end of their performance. They played all the songs off of their debut EP, such as “Dreams” and “Tenterhooks”, and they even introduced a new one, “Fire”, which was sung almost entirely by Craig with Kevin coming out from behind his drum kit to sing along (they also had bassist Andrew play some trumpet, which I am told he hasn’t done since high school!) A crowd favourite had to have been “Montreal Love Song”, which vocalist Erik said was pretty self-explanatory and is about falling in love with a girl from Montreal (I wonder who that may be…). This is one of the tightest bands we have seen perform live, and they are getting better each time we see them.

Next on the bill were the four guys from Birds of Wales. Lead vocalist Morgan sang incredibly well and was able to get people on the floor dancing to groove along with their country-rock tunes. Though Morgan had played an acoustic set previously that day at a MySpace secret show, he was still happy and excited to be playing for the second time that evening. They played all the hits, including “Cinderella (has nothing on you)” and a few love songs that were dedicated to various female audience members. The only rather disappointing thing was that the crowd appeared to filter out. We weren’t sure if that was due to the fact that it was a Thursday night and people had to work the next day, or that they were only there to see We Are The Take, either way it was their loss as Birds know how to rock.

Birds of Wales are a band that garnered much hype a few years ago and have since been touring the UK with such heavy hitters as Xavier Rudd. When we sat down and spoke with Morgan he explained to us that they have already recorded their album and are just waiting to release it. Well, after seeing them live we are certainly hoping that that will be very soon!

photography provided by Carl Heindl