Contributed by John Hargraft

Toronto, Canadian Music Week is here. The opening show for me was a packed room at the Kool Haus featuring The Hives with support from The Donnas and The Carps.

The Carps are a hard-to-place-in-any-one-genre duo from Scarborough. A mix of Rock/Punk with some Soul/R&B and a little Electro. Jahmal Tonge works the lead vocals plus drums and Neil White plays bass/computer and also does some vocals. They played a short set to try to get the early crowd going but most people really just wanted to see The Hives.

After a short break, The Donnas, from Palo Alto, California, came out to a crowd that had swelled since the opener and was ready for some some rock & roll. The Donnas are a four piece, with Brett Anderson on lead vocals. Maya Ford on bass, Allison Robertson with the axe and Torry Castellano on Drums. These ladies didn't disappoint as rock is what they do well.

For those who don't know, The Hives are a five man band from Fagersta, Sweden. They came out in their classic matching suits and jumped right into a couple songs from their newest release The Black and White Album. They rounded out the set list by throwing in a few songs from the previous releases, Tyrannosaurus Hives and Veni Vidi Vicious.

The Hives played for almost an hour straight followed by a few moments of break time before another fifteen minute encore -- never slowing down for an appreciative crowd.

All in all, The Carps piqued my interest, The Donnas were great, but The Hives were fantastic. A pretty good start to what should be an action packed week of musical mayhem in Toronto.

All photos by John Hargraft.