The Big Jingle at Air Canada Centre - December 7, 2013

Photographs by Matt Klopot

On Saturday afternoon, music lovers young and old gathered at the Air Canada Center to celebrate the holidays a couple weeks early with Much Music at their annual festival, The Big Jingle. Santa hats decorated the arena and partnered up with a snowflake infused light show on stage to give the entire show a true holiday feel. With a line-up including Fall Out Boy, Icona Pop, Down With Webster, Ylvis, Serena Ryder, and Mia Martina, and Fefe Dobson, Much Music made sure to make all of us in the crowd proud to see our Canadian blood along side radio and Internet sensations.

Although the sets were incredibly short and felt as though they were just teasers of what was to come, Hedley, Serena Ryder, and Fall Out Boy managed to hook the crowd in early enough in the set to make the crowd forget that they were performing for a television broadcast. As a result of next week’s broadcast of the show, each artist was only allotted enough set time to play the crowd their radio singles. This wasn’t necessarily ideal for die hard fans of the performers, but it did pave the way for a unique concert experience where everyone in the crowd was able to sing a long to every song and fill the arena with the a new kind of energy that is hard to come by at non-broadcasted shows. While this meant that those old songs we long to sing our heart outs to were out of the picture and banter was minimal, the energy that was produced by the crowd made up for it.

The transition from afternoon to evening was undeniably fun, with Swedish duo Icona Pop bringing the entire crowd to their feet with their hit single ‘I Love It’. Despite the lack of attendance of the night, the duo somehow managed to make the night feel intimate with a roaring crowd call back. Their set was over all too soon, but the reved up crowd’s energy was maintained when Internet sensation Ylvis informed the ACC of what a fox says.

After going into his performance with somehow managing to never hear the song before, I was pleasantly surprised with a song that was catchy, strangely addictive, and a performance that had the crowd up in their seats making strange noises that I think we would all like to believe actually comes from a fox.

Peterborough Juno winner Serena Ryder followed the Internet craze with a few songs of her own, including ‘Stompa’, and ‘Merry-go-Round’, reiterating the importance of music in her song introductions. Her sound completely juxtaposed the Fox Song, blowing the crowd away with a more natural talent that needed no back up dancers or over-the-top semantics.

As the night went on, it was obvious that the headliners were no strangers to the stage. Hedley followed their fellow Canadian musician with a contagiously energetic act that made it nearly impossible not to at least tap a foot along to their set. The exchange between the band members along with their audience not only displayed their love for performing, but their appreciation for both their fans, and their ability to create music.

As expected, Fall Out Boy closed off the night with a set that had the crowd on their feet, singing their own lyrics back to them as loud as possible. Pete adapted well to the younger, more family-oriented show, driving home a message that shifted away from normal Fall Out Boy goofiness towards are more inspirational oriented banter that still managed to resonate with the crowd: “We shouldn’t try and make people fit in. We want you to be resilient, because you fans are going to be the people who will change the world.”

The evening was pulled together appropriately with reminders of the importance of giving to those in need during the holidays. The event, sponsored by Virgin Mobile, drew attention to their most recent charitable campaign, RE*generation, which focuses on getting homeless youth off of the streets of Toronto. Although the night was short and full of sets that seemed to leave the more dedicated fans hanging, Much Music threw a festival that had the crowd leaving the ACC feeling festive and energized. The show will air Saturday, December 14th on Much Music at 6pm EST. Make sure to tune in to see last weeks’ performances.