After two months of gigs, 19 nights and 128 bands playing, it’s time for 95 ‘survivors’ to leave The Kathedral and make for the wonderful Reverb (the venue where last season semifinal was held) for their Emergenza second step! From March 17th to April 11th 12 nights of sweat and music are to come with almost 400 musicians playing hard to won the audience over and gain their vote to go ahead to the semifinal at The Opera House. Before looking forward to the next gigs, let’s have a look on what happened in this very long and busy first step. If there were some audience prizes to be awarded right now, they surely would be won by CITY FOLK, the band who gained more votes than any other, 104, followed by THE NICK LEE BAND (92) and BREATHE (75). Lots of bands were worth mentioning in the past two months: A four piece rock band aptly named MINT, ‘half a cup of classic rock, a pint of alternative melodies and a shot of humour’ (as we can read on their introduction); SAMSARA, a mix of soulful female melodies, rockin'' blues guitar, decades old bass lines and an array of complex shuffle beats; DISTANT MINDS, with their mixture of modern hard rock and progressive rock with melodic riffs and powerful choruses. STORM WITHOUT A CEASE, whose name reflects the character of the music and the people who created it. The incredibly energetic GUMPTION’s rock’n’roll live show. The funny and unpredictable mixture of reggae, ska and punk by JOHNNY OUTSTANDING. And in the end, we want to mention the unusual performance by PATRIZIA, ‘a powerful 4 octave operatic soprano fronting a gritty Zeppelinesque rock band’. Believe us, you’ll have plenty of fun! Do not miss the second step in Toronto! And do not forget: if you are an Emergenza musician, you can see all the shows FOR FREE! Click here for a complete schedule of the Festival, the concert dates & the order of bands playing each night in Toronto.