After attending Buskerfest for the second half of Friday, Peter and I decided to go back during the daytime on Saturday. Again we met at College and Yonge. This time in the early afternoon.
The first act I saw was Yo-Yo Guy, John Higby. He has performed his comedy yo-yo show around the world in 26 countries and holds 4 Guinness World Records and a World Yo-Yo Champion title.
Like many of the other buskers he gets kids to participate. Sometimes you can find a real gem as he did this time picking out a young, Asian girl to do the hula hoop which she did remarkably well.
His Yo-Yo tricks were decent and he was pretty funny. An entertaining show to be sure.
After Yo-Yo Guy, Peter and I continued south on Yonge Street. We passed a young fellow, Jack Miron, who couldn't have been much older than seventeen. He was juggling various items on the side of the street.
We weren't actually sure if he was an official participant because he looked so young and he kept dropping items he was juggling every now and then. Good effort though.
Next we stopped by the Family Fun Zone (Stage 9). Aussie duo Sophie and Jacob McGrath of Dream State Circus were performing there. They did a number of acrobatic strength feats as well as juggling and any combination of both. Pretty impressive.
We kept walking south on Yonge passing a number of acts. Still north of Gerrard Street I bumped into a couple of friends, siblings Phyllis and Andy Chong. They used to go to the same church as me. I ran into Phyllis a few years ago at Allen Gardens, but I hadn't seen Andy in, I'm guessing, 10-15 years.
Shortly after bumping into Phyllis and Andy, I ran into Georgette a Flickr friend at the intersection of Yonge and Gerrard. She was at Buskerfest taking photos with one of her friends. I bumped into her a year ago in Tobermory when we went camping there (at Cyprus Lake). I had Peter take a photo of us.
As we were taking photos another friend, Jenn, who volunteers at the Knox Out of the Cold program with me came by. I asked Peter to take another shot.
And, as we were taking that photo, another couple, Jeff and Rosa, who I used to work with at Trader walked up. I ran into Rosa a few years ago at a photo show. I hadn't seen Jeff in 4-5 years. It was nice seeing them again. More photos of course.
Peter and I never caught anymore full performances. Most of the time we showed up part way through.
In front of the new Ryerson Student Centre Human Beatbox, Scott Jackson, was performing. MaracaTALL a troupe of stilt-walkers were at Yonge-Dundas Square. And The Bearded Gypsy Band were playing in front of the Eaton Centre.
After that we headed back north to Salad King for dinner. Peter had spicy Street Noodle Soup. I had yummy Siam Noodle. And we split a so-so Beef Panang Curry dish.
It was pretty dark after eating. We headed north where we saw bassoon and theremin performer, Jeff Burke. It was the first time I've seen a theremin live. Peter didn't even know what it was. Here's a description from the dictionary - a musical instrument with electronic tone generation, the pitch and tone volume being controlled by the distance between the player's hands and two metal rods serving as antennas. Quite unique.
Lastly we snapped a few pictures of Silver Elvis (creation of Toronto performance artist Peter Jarvis) who was making his Silver Elvis moves on the north side of Gerrard and Yonge. There's really not much to his act except for that he looks a big, silver Elvis.
Of all the Toronto street festivals this has to be one of the better ones. Most of the others are food-based. You walk around and eat not doing much more. The Beaches International Jazz Festival has music, but this has much more. If you choose to go to only one, I'd suggest you make it this one.
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