Introduction

If you talk to any generation of music fans in Toronto, chances are they will have a story to tell about the Masonic Temple.

Or is it the Rockpile? The Concert Hall? Or just the MTV building.

Whichever name you knew it by, the Yonge Street institution has kept its edge for over a century. Now an office building owned by a tech company, the venue still hosts performances several times each year.  

Old Masons

The Masonic Temple

The Freemasons probably didn’t plan for the building to become a hotbed of hip hop and other music when they opened the Masonic Temple in 1918. The international fraternal organization, a society of men, met in the ornate upstairs rooms.

But they also needed to pay for the new building and rented out the first floor auditorium for various functions and shows featuring brass-heavy Big Band music, which started the building’s musical legacy.

A black and white image of the exterior of a three-story building alongside a dirt-paved road.

Built as a Masonic Temple and opened in 1918, the building hosted music and live performances as early as 1921.

Courtesy of the Toronto Archives Fonds 755, Item 1231

360 Tour

Step inside!

For the Sounds like Toronto exhibition, Heritage Toronto created a 360-tour of the venue, now home to a tech company. Step inside, look around, and uncover additional stories and content!

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View Transcript

Exterior view of an urban street at night, facing the arched entrance to a five-storey building. The building has neon lighting highlighting the entrance way.

To the left of the entrance is a historic photograph of the intersection showing streetcar lines and old cars.

On the opposite side of the street, there is a Canadian Tire and gas station, designed in the Art Deco style.

[The Lobby]

Inside the doors there are seven steps up to the lobby. Around the crown moulding, there are photographs of musicians who have played in the venue. On the ceiling is a chandelier with round lights.

There are doorways on several sides, but the only entrance that is open is straight ahead.

[The Main Hall]

The first view is of the main stage. The stage is two-tiered and has black flooring. There are red curtains, which are drawn to the sides. On the stage are light letters ITRG, and a wrought-iron spiral staircase.

The view 90-degrees to the left of the main stage shows glass-walled offices on the upper balcony level and open space on the lower level. On the left wall is a poster. The poster reads "THE ULTIMATE HIP HOP BATTLE: New York Invades Toronto" and describes a hip hop battle in four rounds: The Female MCs, Battle of the Crews, Battle of the DJs, Battle of the Human Beat Box.

The view 90-degrees to the right of the main stage shows a brick wall with the words "The Concert Hall" painted on it. On the floor is a photograph. It shows a woman hiding underneath a table, as people applaud around her.

The view 180-degrees from the main stage shows the back of the main hall and the upper level balcony with a low railing. You can access the balcony.

[The Balcony]

From the balcony, there is a wider view of the main hall and stage on the ground floor. There is a variety of seating, including old concert seats, benches with red leather, and modern leather couches. There is a clock on the wall that looks like a modern antique. The view 90-degrees to the right shows a poster on the wall. The poster has a yellow background and a baseball flying across it. The text on it reads "Feverpitch! A Gay Dance" with details about the event to be held at the Concert Hall on September 4, 1981.

There is also a pink concert ticket stub for SOAP Fundraiser Dance, which has a drawing of a pig dressed as a police officer, in a bathtub full of bubbles. The bubbles are covering the word "soap". Details about the dance party are written below.

There is an access point 90-degrees to the left of the centre of the balcony.

[The Red Room]

This space is brightly lit and has three Gothic-looking chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. There are a series of red chairs around the edge of the room on a raised wooden surface. There is a stage straight ahead with an ornate red and gold chair on the left and a drum kit at the centre. In front of the stage is a historic photograph showing a group of 11 people seated around a table in front of the stage.

180-degrees from the centre view, there is a billiards table set up for an opening shot. There are more red chairs at the back and an upper level balcony.

The Rockpile

The Rockpile:
An Early Hot Bed for Rock & Roll

For one glorious year, from 1968-69, the building became a major rock venue. Named The Rockpile, it offered the youthful energy of Yonge Street's smaller venues a larger space.

Promoters booked bands at the height of the psychedelic revolution: Led Zeppelin played there twice, first as a barely known band, then as chart-topping performers.

Throughout the 1960s The Who, Chuck Berry, and Canned Heat also graced its stage, as did local stars such as Neil Young, Kensington Market, and Lighthouse. 

Poster with illustration of a person's face and details about the Led Zeppelin concert at the Rockpile.

Poster for Led Zeppelin concert at The Rock Pile, February 1969.

Courtesy of The Flyer Vault.

Underground Music

“Toronto’s first above-ground home for underground music”

Starting in the 1970s, the building underwent a series of name changes and became critical to the city’s punk, new wave, funk, dancehall, reggae, and grunge scenes.

From 1980 to 1990, the Gay Community Dance Committee rented the space for fundraiser dances attracting up to 2,000 people.

GCDC Posters
 Poster with a yellow background and baseball moving across the top. Below the baseball are the words "Feverpitch" and a description of the event

Poster for Feverpitch, a gay dance organized by the GCDC (Gay Community Dance Committee) at The Concert Hall, September 4, 1981. Courtesy of The ArQuives

Pink ticket stub with a drawing of a pig dressed as a police officer, in a bathtub full of bubbles. The bubbles are covering the word "soap". Details about the dance party are written below.

Ticket stub for GCDC dance party, SOAP, in remembrance of the Bathhouse Raids, at The Concert Hall, February 3, 1983. Courtesy of The ArQuives

3D Turntable & Monster Jams
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Founder and Director of Northside Hip Hop Archives, Mark V. Campbell (aka DJ Grumps) provided his personal 1983 Technics’ Direct Drive Turntable – a collectors' item coveted by other DJs – for Heritage Toronto to create a digital rendering of it. Toronto's Dream Warriors duo King Lou and Capital Q's 45RPM single "Wash Your Face in My Sink" lies on top waiting to be played. What song would you play? Turntable generously provided by DJ Grumps. Digital rendering commissioned by Heritage Toronto.

Turn it up!

"Hey Mr. DJ, won't your turn this music up?" Hip hop is often the foundation for professional DJs. The right music and moves, like scratching, keep the dance floor jumping.

Making it as a Canadian hip hop artist in the late 1980s meant playing The Concert Hall. Radio DJ Ron Nelson organized all-ages “Monster Jams” and rap battles, playfully pitting US artists against local acts, such as Michie Mee and Maestro Fresh-Wes.

The Toronto talent regularly toppled the Americans with their local sound, a mix of different styles, beats, and lyrics. Audiences came from all parts of the city and Greater Toronto Area to proudly cheer on their own.

Hip hop went mainstream at the Concert Hall. When Public Enemy performed there in 1989, their music resonated with a diverse audience, attracted to their message of political change.

Hip Hop and Monster Jams

Hip Hop and Remixes

Known as the Godfather of Hip Hop and often described as “Canada’s Wayne Gretzky of rap,” Maestro Fresh Wes (also known as Maestro) grew up in Scarborough, and began rapping at age 15, blazing his own trail into the music world.

Maestro studied law and political science before choosing to focus on his music career. In 1989, Maestro first performed at The Concert Hall, at the time, one of the centres of hip hop and rap in Toronto. Considered one of the most influential early hip-hop artists, Maestro has always relied on a mix of musical genres in his work, adding an extra layer of interpretation, particularly heard on his 2013 album Orchestrated Noise. The album features numerous collaborations, including with Toronto band Blue Rodeo and rapper Classified.

Let Your Backbone Slide

Let Your Backbone Slide

Maestro Fresh Wes released "Let Your Backbone Slide" in 1989. The following year, the music video of the song debuted on television. Filmed at a former church in Toronto, the popular video raised Maestro's status across Canada and the world. Popular music television channels, like MuchMusic and MTV featured the video, encouraging music fans to buy the album. 

The promotion helped to make Maestro Fresh Wes Canada's first hip hop performer to have Gold album (50,000 copies sold), and the first Black Canadian to have a certified Platinum album (one million copies sold).

The music video for "Let Your Backbone Slide" won the JUNO Award for Best Video in 1991. The same year marked the first appearance of the JUNO Award category for Best Rap Recording of the Year, which Maestro's album promptly won.

Inducted into the Canadian Songwriter's Hall of Fame in 2019, Maestro's single "Let Your Backbone Slide" and seminal album continues to make history.

"Let Your Backbone Slide" MV
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Watch the official music video for "Let Your Backbone Slide" from Maestro Fresh Wes' debut album "Symphony in Effect", released in 1989. (Please note: This third-party video does not have closed captioning.)

View Transcript

(People on the street outside a building, a group of paparazzi frantically ask them questions.)

♪ This is a throw down, a showdown, hell no, I can't slow down
It's gonna go down, ♪
(Hip hop backtrack begins playing to accompany rap.)
(They go inside the building, where it is dark and they begin dancing. Spliced in is a shot of two women singing and dancing in front of a patterned backdrop)
♪ first offense on the mix down, go on and break down
Okay, party people in the house, may I have your attention, please?
In a moment, the beat will be played in many parts, come on and break
Many parts, many, one, two, three, come on and break ♪
(Spliced between scratching of a turntable to women holding up signs with 1, 2, or 3 on them.)
(Cut to shot of man sitting at organ piano writing with pen and paper. Beside him a woman dances to the beat.)

♪ This jam is amplified, so just glide and let your backbone slide ♪

(Return to shots of people dancing in building.)
(Cut to group of men outside and surrounded by paparazzi again.)  

♪ You listen to every word I say, I, every verb you heard
I play snaps a vertabrae, you try to cover, a hover me, a roast, a fake
A flag, then I run a post, toast, I'm the most, D-E-F's how it goes
No X's or O's or tic-tac-toes, L-T-D knows,
This ain't a game I'm on a mission,
Call me a hip-hop, tip-tac-tition,
(Cut to man sitting reading pieces of paper, behind him two women dance before a patterned backdrop.)
I rap just like a slab of clay, that's shapeless,
Champagne no shimmer no glass is tasteless,
A universe without light is light less
That's why I always take time to write this
I mold it in my hands before I start chiselin'
Could be a rain or brainstorm or drizzlin'
Sun could be shining, sun could be showerin'
Practice make perfect and I'm powerin', flowerin'
(Cut to man rapping as he paces in front of a group of men before a brick wall.)
My lyrics are awesome, tunin' from human, bloomin' a blossom
Blowing away blockades and barricades, make ya black and blue
From the blast and the blaze, it's a bloodsport, bloods builds up back
I make your vision go blurry while your brain goes black into oblivion
Beats from box to box to bates, rocks from blocks and blocks
Let your backbone slide ♪

(Return to dancing scene in building.)
(Cut to women dancing on stairs.)
(Cut to men in red jackets dancing in synchronization.)
(Cut to man sitting in chair rapping with woman caressing him before a patterned backdrop.)

♪ Just let it slide y'all, I don't give a damn, damn, if ya backbone quiver ♪
(Cut to shots of women dancing.)
♪ Man, oh man, watch ya swiver,
Wind some twine your spine while you're slither,
It's contagious, a epidemic,
You try to lift you're cool but it fell again,
Rap scholar, soul like a Dominican
Butt like I said before, "I'm not American
It's who you are not the where you went, we all originate from the same descent"
I make a lot of cents, sense and pence, gold, myrrh and frankincense ♪
(Cut to two men and a woman dancing on stairs as they descend them.)
♪ When I'm in France they blow me francs, Frank
With your Swiss account is the way I bank-pank, at home I make bills
Are brown from my sound in the States, green like the grass
In the ground when I'm in England, they pass me pounds now
I clock cash in every town, so I slide but nowadays, I'm trapped
Why's that? So many suckers on my sacroiliac
It's like a rap-sack, backpack, wic-wic-whack, give me some slack jack
Rap is like a jungle, where rhyme for rhyme is like a vine to vine
Swung line to line of mine, I'm colossal, you'se a mosquito
I'mma play Tarzan, you play cheetah, cheetah, bitter love to forge
Better yet, I'll call you Curious George 'cause curiosity cold killed the cat ♪
(Return to man rapping on stage.)
♪ Can't hide so black to the side, let your backbone slide ♪
(Return to man sitting while women dance in behind him before a patterned backdrop.)
(Return to man rapping on stage.)

♪ The keyword is synchronism, yo, check out my homeboy dance to the rhythm (Hey)
This ain't Forte, I'm coming Double-F, Fortissimo, FF for funky fresh,
My DJ is LTD, mellow-flex
You listen to the poetry, big jumbo jet,
Vocabulary golden beats from my rollin'
Stone cold lyrics with the microphone
I'm holdin', words I rip, egos I strip,
I make sucker crews kick Dick Van Dyke flips, ♪
(Return to shots of people dancing in building.)
♪ I get busy, they're dizzy, they start to collide they should've stepped off, ♪
(Return to man rapping on stage.)
♪ I let it slide, but now they got brazen ♪
(Return to man rapping in front of group of men against brick wall.)
♪ Dry like a raisin, I glaze like a vase, I smash you like days until
They realize, they shouldn't have ripped, it's '89 y'all,
Not Beethoven's fifth or sixth, it's a throw down, I'm conducting it
Because like a high rise I'm constructing it, ♪
(Close-up of man rapping, holding quill and paper against patterned backdrop.)
♪ T'was once thoughts, pen and paper
Now it's a tower, a soul, a skyscraper, ♪
(Cut to shots of crowd jumping and dancing.)
♪ It's getting out of hand after I've created a monster, ♪
(Cut to woman dancing on stairs.)
♪ My musical monologue makes you wanna move with the Maestro, ♪
(Return to man rapping on stage. Montage of people dancing and man rapping on stage.)
♪ You feel hot so you set the blend the crescendo is nice yo,
I'm the guy, the rhythm is a ride
To the fresh side and let your backbone slide,
this is a throw down ♪
(Posters each saying "Let", "Your", "Backbone", "Slide" are spliced in.)
(Final shot of group of men standing looking into camera, "Vintage Hip Hop Seattle" fades on bottom center then whole scene fades to black.)

Maestro Quote

The album came out and it completely changed the musical climate of Toronto [...]

It definitely put a battery in [...] the nation
as far as Canadian hip-hop went.

— Maestro, interview with National Music Centre's Amplify, 2019
Reach for the Sky

Watch: Reach for the Sky

In 2012, Maestro Fresh Wes released Black Tuxedo, his first album of new music after a seven-year hiatus. The album, which returned to Maestro's roots of sampling and collaboration, featured appearances by several prominent Canadian musicians from diverse genres, including the rapper Classified and violinist Suzka. The album includes the song "Reach for the Sky", a song which became Canada’s official anthem at the 2014 Sochi Olympics in Russia.

The album was nominated for the 2013 JUNO Award for Best Rap Recording, a category Maestro Fresh Wes had defined since winning it the first year it was included in the JUNO Awards in 1991.

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This online exhibition uses third-party applications including Spotify and YouTube. Check with your organization’s web administrator if you are unable to access content from these channels in the exhibition.

Shot across the city, "Reach for the Sky" marks a collaboration between Canadian hip hop architect Maestro, long-time rapper Classified, and country-rock darling Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo. See how many Toronto landmarks you can name. (Please note: This third-party video does not have closed captioning.)

View Transcript

[The sun rises over a city. A Black man wearing headphones and sunglasses sits in a plane as it taxis outside of an airport. The same man and a white man, wearing camoflauged pants and sunglasses, rap outside against the backdrop of a blue sky.

Throughout the video, the two are seen on the rooftop of a tall building in downtown Toronto and in other landmarks around the city.]

Oh baby you try
Oh baby you try
Oh baby you try

Yo yo
I keep stressing I'm at wits so every time she nurses
My c's (try) breaking out with a rash I'm felling worthless (try) a man without a purpose
A lot people think I'm a star but to me I'm still scratching on the surface
(try) In the (try) pass I was stung by the generous ones later on we out they be the venomous one
Lot snakes be disguised as your brother and devils come in many different shape sizes and colours
But ima stay focused and I'm a wreck the set ........................ still they wanna stress the vet
My father even told me get your blood pressure checked punks try to crucify me watch me resurrect and ima
And return like a phoenix when I and then I reach to the zenith ima set any goal and achieve it son I've been legendary sticking to my 20/20 so

Try
When your tired and struggling
(Try)
Ya ya Don't ever let it stop your hustlin'
(Try)
Ya can't stay down ya gotta get up
Ya got to get up got got to up and
Try
Ya and when you feel like you never get it
(Try)
You just push it to farther to the limit
(Try)
Ya get what I'm saying now put your hands high
Oh baby you try and reach for the sky

Oh baby you try
Let me try this
Eyes on the on the prise I'm inspired
Self made man stay driven check the mileage
Reach for the sky I don't fly on autopilot
Control my own destiny don't knock to till you try it
I felt the heat and cold dealt with every climate
Decided I can do this any obstacle I climbed it
But any means my mistakes I redeemed
Cause I came forward with my dreams
But I'd be lying thru my teeth if I told you that
Rhyming on these beats grinding on these streets came easy
But now I'm king on my crowed
Cause I'd never see while eyeing on the beats trying to be me
Well you can (TRY)
Ya the early bird get the worm better (TRY)
Aw aw boy your bout to miss your turn gotta (TRY)
Ya when opportunity comes
Ya better get it when ya fit it or your fit to be done we gotta
TRY

Try
When your tired and struggling
(Try)
Ya ya Don't ever let it stop your hustlin'
(Try)
Ya can't stay down ya gotta get up
Ya got to get up got got to up and
Try
Ya and when you feel like you never get it
(Try)
You just push it to farther to the limit
(Try)
Ya get what I'm saying now put your hands high
Oh baby you try and reach for the sky

I got the strength for the raging fire flaming when I hit them
Mazes I've been in got burnt down blazing with the rhythm
Display your position amazing with vision
Please hear my speech and reevaluate their religion
When I was young kids would lied to me they were denying me
Now I'm the ........... with the fire spread vilely
Start ................... mathematically alowin me
...........................
In other words the man in the mirror who's I strive to be
Another days tribulation in the try for me
So finally I became the man I try to be
So put you hands high and reach for the sky with me

Raise your hands
Get your hands in the sky
Get your hands in the sky
Rise to shine
Rise to shine
(Oh baby you try)
Rise to shine

Rebirth

Rebirth

The more things change, the more they stay the same as these photos, taken 70 years apart, show. In 2006, the Concert Hall became home to MTV Canada and Kanye West performed at its official launch. The Polaris Music Prize was held there from 2009 until 2012, after which MTV Canada sold the building. The auditorium continues to be used for live music.

 An intersection with a mid-rise building curving around the far corner. Hydro poles and a bus stop are on the right side of the image.  An intersection with a mid-rise building curving around the far corner. Hydro poles and a bus stop are on the right side of the image. Traffic lights are also found at the intersection.

Click here to travel through time

Images of the Concert Hall in 1947 and 2019

Courtesy of Archives of Ontario (1947)

Photograph by Vik Pahwa (2019)

Dive Deeper

Dive Deeper

The Flyer Vault: 150 Years of Toronto History. By Daniel Tate & Rob Bowman. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2019. Book.