This past weekend (July 12) saw Toronto's local radio station 102.1 The Edges annual summer music festival, Edgefest - featuring some great Canadian bands like Attack in Black, Ashes Divide, Sam Roberts and the big-time headliners Stone Temple Pilots (Newly reunited) and Linkin Park! There was no way Beer.com wouldn't be there - so what did we think?

The Music

The bands were amazing - a great lineup of know Canadian bands on the mainstage, and some lesser-known bands like Creature and Sweet Thing on the sidestage. I personally love the sidestage setup, getting to experience some smaller bands is a great way to expand your horizons, musically. If you checked out Slave the the Square Wave then you'll enjoy Creature.

Attack in Black, always solid live, did a great job for having such an early timeslot.

The Bravery and Sam Roberts put on incredible shows, despite Sam Roberts being a well-known artist he constantly looks like he's been sleeping in the streets for weeks. Serious hobo-beard, dude.

Not surprisingly, the headliners stole the show - Linkin Park and Stone Temple Pilots were both incredible, but I've gotta give the edge (no pun intended) to STP for stealing the show. I saw these guys live back in '96 with the Foo Fighters and they haven't missed a beat since then.

The Venue

Held at Toronto's Downsview Park, which is, basically, a big field. Where better to hold a music festival, right? Well too bad there was too little shade and too much rain - there was a torrential downpour! It was Woodstock all over again, turning a major portion of the field into a mud pit. Moshing and not topless chick-wrestling took place, much to my chagrin.

The Beer Tent was also massively crowded, turning the festival into Linefest 08, with half-hour-plus downtimes between bands on the mainstage, the lines for pot-o-johns and the beer garden were massive!

As well, food and drink were scarce. With only 2 or 3 booths to purchase sustainence - getting water was near impossible, and the lines made getting beer prohibitive. If not for the rain I imagine there would have been a few people passing out from dehydration.

Overall the music was, duh, the reason to go to this event. Oh, and the MOTHERFUCKING BATMOBILE.

Ya, the real movie Batmobile and Batpod from the upcoming Dark Knight film was at the festival - does it make me a nerd if that was a highlight for me?

Anyways, the show was good, the venue, not so much. An experience, for sure, and something I'd do again in a heartbeat - way to go THE EDGE!