Unseen Pleasures: Joy Division tribute night from 1997 at the El Mocambo

Here is a young man…

24 years ago tonight, Feb. 9, 1997, a dozen oddball Toronto bands paid tribute to UK post-punk pioneers Joy Division as part of Sedated Sunday at the El Mocambo. YouTube footage of the night has just surfaced and yes that is the author as a young man right off the top, strumming bass and shouting/speaking "Twenty Four Hours" with Hidden Agenda.

Other acts included: Parts Unknown, Mean Red Spiders, Neck, 122 Greige, The Spy feat. William New, Poppyseed and the Love Explosion, Weird Library of Art, and Saracen.

From ANOTW:

"A community had developed around the main floor of the El Mo in the mid-nineties, especially around the weekly Sedated Sunday, organized by Steve Bromstein of the neo-psych-folk band Poppyseed & the Love Explosion Orchestra – with the help of a few friends, and plenty of cannabis.

Greg Chambers (Mean Red Spiders): 'The night was originally supposed to be a low-key, acoustic night, but we took the word ‘Sedated’ to mean something a little different. With different bookers working different nights, it was pretty easy to get a weeknight gig that you could put together yourself. Artists would come out almost any night of the week to meet and greet one another, and many a band was started hanging downstairs in the ‘Keith Richards Lounge’ in the basement.'

Sedated Sundays also started hosting regular tribute nights, which brought together indie bands of many different stripes to pay tribute to an influential artist; my personal favourite was the tribute to the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album."