Welcome, Curious Spectator.
WOOO!!!! HOOOOT!!!! HOLLA!!!! Sorry, I'm just kind of excited to talk about these next few shows.
In 2003 Tragically Hip frontman Gordon (nee Gord, sorry...I always wanted to say "nee" ) Downie played a small, intimate show at the Paragon (a.k.a. the club formally known as "Marquee"), pitching his second solo album backed up by an eclectic assemblage of musicians collectively known as The Country of Miracles.
Sometime you attend rough gigs that you expect to be rough, so you're kinda prepared for it. But sometimes you can really get caught completely unawares if you get stuck with the wrong crowd.
The funny thing about Gordo and The Hip is that they inexplicably seem to appeal to a certain segment of drunken date rapist, polo-shirt/truckers cap wearing asshole frat boy types just as readily as the thoughtful, intelligent and contemplative fan. Now, that's not a slight against the band. Morons can watch the movie "Fight Club" and enjoy the dust-ups while someone with some cranial capacity will understand it on several fronts.
Anyway, guess what heavy percentage showed up at this gig? Crowd surfing at a Country of Miracles show? What are you, on dope?
Oh, yes...I see.
Ironically it was one of the nuttiest shows I'd been to since I got trapped in the organized riot that was the Foo Fighters mosh pit. Gord, being the consummate pro, recognized the periodic chaos and tried to calm the great unwashed masses down by interspersing some quiet tunes. Here's a clip to illustrate just how ludicrous this whole story is:
Wow. What a difference seven years makes in a video channel, huh? Can you imagine "Much Music" doing an "Intimate and Interactive" like this now? Do you think that one day they'll have an epiphany and realize that people, even young people, want to see good, real, live music and not crap?
Of course not. That's crazy talk!
Sorry, I digress. Soooo, that was pretty tranquil, right?
Anyway, despite (or because of) all the insanity, the show was a real barn-burner. It was great just being that close to a Canadian musical icon. I don't know if it was his proximity to the crowd or the general insanity, but Gord was relatively sedate. Relatively sedate in an intense, slow-burn and completely hypnotic sort of way (of course).
Songs like "Chancellor", "Pasquale's Submarine", "Vancouver Divorce", "We're Hardcore", "Christmastime in Toronto", "Figment", "The Never Ending Present", "Canada Geese", "Lofty Pines", "Yer Possessed", and "Trick Rider" were rendered with appropriate elan or tranquility, depending on how the band wanted to bend the mood of the crowd to their will. I still believe that they would have played longer if not for the pronounced hooligan factor.
I remember walking away from the stage and nearly tripping and falling in the nearly ankle-deep pool of beer and shattered glass underfoot. Friggin' nuts.
2005 brought some pivotal concert-going memories, including my favorite show of all time (thus far). First and foremost, The Rolling Stones brought their Bigger Bang tour to Moncton (undoubtedly de-consecrating the Magnetic Hill Pope site in the process.)
Some concerts I see because I've heard good things about an up-and-coming act. Some concerts I see because I'm completely emotionally invested in the performer. I saw The Rolling Stones for a completely different reason:
They're the friggin' Rolling Stones. C'mon, people!
I didn't own any of their albums at the time, a major failing on my part. I've since come to the conclusion that I'm not so much a fan of their hit singles as their "B"-side stuff. For example, I love, love, love this tune, but they rarely play it live:
After a welcome set by "The Hip" and a completely disposable showing by vapid pop pretty-boys Moron...er, Moroon 5, darkness began to claim the concert site. Appropriately cloaked, the band hit the stage with the energy of kids half their age.
Kicked off the by the no-brainer "Start Me Up", the band proceeded to deliver a massive rock spectacle of the highest order. Everything was as you might expect it to be. Keef was cutting some tasty riffs, striking his characteristically vacant detox rock star poses. Mick pranced and minced around the stage like a leathery, flamboyant harlequin. Ronnie Wood rocked a mean bass grove, blew kisses to the audience and played off of his band mates with typical aplomb. And finally the always-stalwart Charlie Watts, clad in his white uniform t-shirt, drummed away like an older brother bemused by his crazy siblings.
The stage was insane with its nine tiers of elaborate lighting, a network of ramps that Mick could do laps around, three massive video screens and, of course, a ginormous set of inflatable lips and tongue. Wisely, the band also invested in a rising secondary stage which was used mid-show to turn the massive rock extravaganza into the equivalent of an intimate club gig. Brilliant!
By the time the lights and screens went blood red and nearly the entire stage erupted in columns of fire, we knew what we were in for. The band clobbered the rabid crowd with a one-two punch of "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Paint It Black". I can't explain this sensation to someone who hasn't experienced it but it's a real trip to sing a legendary rock song in unison with 80,000 music fans and the actual band that wrote said classic!
This was truly a stellar show. Along with what I've already mentioned, we were also were treated to classics like "It's Only Rock & Roll", "Tumbling Dice", "Ruby Tuesday", "You Can't Always Get What You Want", "Miss You", "Midnight Rambler", "Honky Tonk Women", "Jumping Jack Flash", "Brown Sugar" and an "extended dance mix" version of "Satisfaction" as an encore.
Needless to say, with this being my first big arena rock experience, the bar had been set pretty friggin' high for any future pretenders to the throne.
But this was still not my favorite concert of all time. What could possibly top this you ask?
The event in question occurred mere weeks later on September 22'nd that same year. It was Pearl Jam live at the Metro Center.
And frankly, when the announcement came, the show worried me a bit. In the early Nineties Pearl Jam was renowned for producing some of the most electric and dynamic live shows ever. Lead singer/human spider monkey Eddie Vedder would often risk life and limb by crowd diving, climbing to dizzying heights atop a pinnacle of speakers or swinging around in the rafters.
But when Pearl Jam literally turned their back on the spotlight in the mid-Nineties, Vedder and company became kinda sullen and morose, as if rock stardom was an albatross hanging around their collective necks. What band would show up on that appointed date?
Tickets sold out within an hour. I barely managed to snag four seats on the far side of the arena, so, thinking myself clever, I brought along a small pair of binoculars to use during the show.
During the check-in, a security guy who'd obviously been born sans penis declared that my binoculars could be "used as a weapon" and threatened to confiscate them. Stunned with having to choose between losing an expensive pair of Bushnell's or doing a "Chariots of Fire" sprint back to where I'd parked the car (and risk missing the start of the show), I begrudgingly took the latter option.
I was hella-pissed by the time I got back. To reward people who'd shown up early, Eddie Vedder himself had wandered out on stage to do a solo acoustic version of "Drifting" and give a boffo introduction for Sleater-Kinney. I'd missed this awesome moment and Sleater-Kinney's first two songs!
I tell ya right now, if I could just have that tool from security right here right now I'd beat him to death with a pillowcase filled with rusty doorknobs.
I really liked (and still dearly miss) Sleater-Kinney so I'm still quite vexed that I missed their first few tunes. "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone" is one of my favorite tunes!
As I settled into my seat, a friend and fellow attendee told me that he'd had a similar run-in with security. They'd ordered him to surrender a $100.00 set of pro bike pedals he'd just bought a mere two hours ago because they "could be used as a weapon" as well. I can imagine the headlines now:
"DICKLESS SECURITY GUARD BLUDGEONED TO DEATH WITH BIKE PEDALS AT PEARL JAM GIG . FILM AT ELEVEN."
Like me, rather than risk loosing them he'd been forced to run back to his wife's place of employment, leave the bike pedals in her desk and beat feet all the way back again!
All 13,000 seats in the Metro Center were filled with the bums of Pearl Jam fans that had waited fifteen years to see their beloved band live. By the time they came onstage and eased into their historic set with a haunting rendition of "Hard To Imagine" it quickly became apparent that everyone in attendance knew every line to this song and were all singing along without any prompts!
Duly impressed, the band launched into "Animal": a pure blast of cutting guitar, primal howls and rollicking drum and bass lines. It was soon glaringly obvious: everyone under the roof of that building that evening seemed to be in perfect universal harmony. I sensed immediately that this was sure to be the concert of a lifetime.
Now Pearl Jam isn't like some other bands I've mentioned that refuse to acknowledge the presence of a crowd. The boys were constantly toasting the city of Halifax, making reference to our local "Keith's" beer, and bantering with the audience.
The attention was returned triple-fold. The gathered broke into spontaneous beat-claps, shouted screams of bliss, bellowed tributes to keyboardist Boom Gaspar ("BOOOOOOOOM!"), provided unflagging vocal back-ups and served up thunderous ovations which sometimes impeded the band from moving on to the next song!
The sound was immaculate. Every note from lead guitarist Mike McCready and Stone Gossard was distinct. The percussion provided from ex-Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron was nothing short of awe-inspiring. Bassist Jeff Ament was also relentless, periodically pogoing around the stage and risking whiplash by headbanging like a speed-metal freak.
And we were also lucky enough to have the Eddie Vedder of yore in attendance. Sporting a black t-shirt that said "SHOW ME YOUR RIFFS" he lurched all over the stage, balanced a can of beer on his head during the entire duration of "Down"and held an intense command like a musical Svengali.
After raising hackles up our collective backs with an amazing rendition of "Dissident", the boys threw us a rare treat by playing both "State of Love and Trust" and "Breathe" from the soundtrack of the movie Singles. The infrequency of the band ever playing these songs in recent concerts can be highlighted in this audio clip from "Breathe" in which Vedder actually forgets the lyrics at the 1:14 mark and substitutes a salty epithet.
P.S. Stick around at the end of this for Eddie's priceless banter about small towns...
Wow, I think I can actually hear myself screaming lyrics at the 3:17 point.
At the end of the first thirteen song first set (!), the band rewarded our unquestionable devotion by blowing the dust off of "Jeremy", a tune they'd virtually mothballed since the matching video produced at the time drew put a bit too much emphasis on the look of the band versus the sound. Again, this is what I'm talking about when I rant about the historic significance of live performances. When the Halifax setlist got posted on fanpages, people just couldn't believe Pearl Jam had actually played some of these tunes for us.
Y'know, I could go on an don about every song in this amazing show but the real moment of transcendence occurred in the second (yes, I said second) encore when the entire first verse of "Betterman" was co-opted by the audience and sung without Vedder's participation. Here's that magical moment captured right here:
http://www.pearljambootlegs.org/modules/jinzora2/index.php?lcmpy9Sh=pNKW29Gcp6s%3D&nuCU0sannA%3D%3D=ZpZll5RlZGdsYZFxYJhlWYGXo83Lw7FQsp6lo6OGfMii2prUkVN8mKOdx5mrklOHjFZjhKjDp5HJmmBjZJZukGSfYpSXU3yYo53HmauGgJ6tqKaEqMenpMqrXVF8x6XMmsetjoWBh2NXd8KmlMqUWWGaoNfIgmtZlGpiUWGGe8io2prU0pSiV2RUsZ2U2J9Zg5ekhJKCa2CVbl5hbZNrlVSuls7OmZWvV4HGrKXVU3yepKvWyo5ZeMalmpeV3mWDgrlhgqiUopiblYFgl8JZPLUSmnFloYJLS0mw%3D&qNJZPLUSlxw%3D%3D=qNiWxdA%3D&ext.m3u
I actually tear up like a weepy little b!@#$ when I hear this. How sad is that?
The whole magical event was nicely capped off with an off-the-hook cover of Neil Young's "Rockin' In the Free World" which saw Sleater Kinney's return to the stage for one big final monster jam. All 13,000 people in attendance that night stumbled out of the Metro Center completely worn out yet very aware of the importance of what they'd witnessed.
More to come later. Have a great weekend, peoples!
EPIC: Here's a link to the entire Halifax/Pearl Jam show for your listening pleasure...
http://www.pearljambootlegs.org/modules/jinzora2/index.php?nuCU0sannA%3D%3D=ZpZll5RlZGdsYZFxYJhlWYGXo83Lw7FQsp6lo6OGfMii2prUkVN8mKOdx5mrklOHjFZjhKjDp5HJmg%3D%3D&ext.html
FAIL: In the immortal words of Johhny Rotten: "Ever get the feeling that you've been cheated?" Bad tumble, tho.
Showing posts with label concerts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label concerts. Show all posts
Friday, August 6, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
"If you yell 'PLAY FREEBIRD!' one more time, I'm gonna punch you in the neck!" - Part IV
And a fine day to you, Gentle Reader.
My concert-going retrospective has inspired me summarize the following:
DAVE'S TOP-TEN DOUCHE-IEST PERSONALITY TYPES AT A CONCERT:
FAIL:
My concert-going retrospective has inspired me summarize the following:
DAVE'S TOP-TEN DOUCHE-IEST PERSONALITY TYPES AT A CONCERT:
- "I am the Texting Queen! I can do anyth-e-e-e-ng!" At the last show I attended I actually saw a chick texting one-handedly, whilst and and at the same time, fist-pumping the air as if she was trying to convince herself and everyone around her that she was "living in the now". I'm sorry, but there's no way you can be properly invested in a live show while thumb-wrestling with a Blackberry. Unplug yourself for a few hours, for f#@$ sake! Why are you even there? How can this truly be a band you like if you're writing the equivalent of email at this show? You might as well be at work fer Chrissakes!
- Mr. Plow This meathead often barrels straight through the crowd like Juggernaut through the X-Men. His only mindless goal: the stage. He doesn't give a crap if he leaves flip-flop marks on your back, he's a man on a mission, dammit!
- Lost Sheep How often have you been at a show and you get a Mr. Plow type shove from behind but ignore it because you're oh, I dunno, ACTUALLY TRYING TO WATCH THE F#@$%^& SHOW? But it persists so eventually you turn around and it's some Smurfette who bats her eyes at you and says forlornly: "Oh, excuse me, can I get through? I'm just trying to get back to my friends!" Yeah, you know what, honey? No, no you can't. The law of the concert jungle is: if you wanna see the band close up, you get your ass there early. If you want to continue to see the band close up, don't drink six liters of draft, fill your squash-ball sized bladder to capacity, leave the front of the stage, do your bidness and then expect to get right back to where you were. It ain't gonna happen. Get a f#@$%^& catheter and colostomy bag installed like the rest of us or get to the back of the line, you twit.
- Chemical Zombies These human wastes of space are often mercifully encountered singly since their equally wasted brethren have all forgotten where the others were last standing. Often they spend the entire show staring at the stage, involuntarily weaving back and forth, mouth agape, eyes looking like two piss-holes in the snow. Quite often they're also shirtless and have lost all conception of personal space, so it's not unusual for one or more of them to stick on to you despite the fact that there are plenty of other places nearby where their clammy, greasy bodies don't have to be affixed to you. They're a tremendous distraction since they always seem only moments away from a technicolor yawn. Well, at least their quiet. Having said that I always want to grab one of them, spin them around and scream: "Congratulations! You just spent a eighty bucks for the most regret-filled hangover you'll ever have in your life!"
- We Are Not Amused. These clowns are like Roman Emperors who go to concerts with giant chips on their shoulders daring the band to knock it off. They don't clap, hoot, pogo, whistle, sing lyrics, or remove their hands from their pockets. In fact, they barely breathe. Unless the band puts a spotlight on them, comes down into the crowd and offers up an encore of fellatio these f#@$%^& are more stoic than a Wooden Indian in a cigar shop. Again I ask, why are you even there? Did you inherit the ticket from someone who couldn't go? Did your significant other drag you along? What the f#$% is your story? ANSWER ME!!!
- "They Call Me The Space Cowboy..." I can't count how many times I've had a contact high from "Cheech and Chong" types that smoke weed around me. I always wonder why so much of it gets through security but then again the food vendors probably consider it to be a catalyst for big business. I personally stay whip-straight for concerts, to try and preserve my already feeble memory and stay frosty in case of an emergency, but I don't bregrudge someone partaking in a little doobage at a show. But c'mon people! At the Rolling Stones concert I went to, a couple of aging hippies in front of us smoked about six kilos of Wheelchair Weed right in front of us the whole time. We had to back up a few feet because my buddy Dean's head was starting to look like a bag of Tostitos. What I really get a kick out of are the young twits in front of me that smoke up without eating or drinking anything, suddenly "feel sick" and run out of the crowd holding their mouths. Morons. Well, actually that's not such a bad thing since they're now out of my way and I'm a few steps closer to the stage! Woo-hoo!
- The Documentarian I always get a chuckle out of tech heads that do nothing but videotape the entire show, usually with some crappy camera or cell phone. Instead of actually enjoying themselves they spend the entire time with their electronic device of choice held aloft, developing a major arm cramp and blocking the view of people who actually want to see the band and have fun. Are these people genuine fans who want to freeze the moment in time forever, smuggle it back home like illegal tranny midget llama porn and will eventually enjoy themselves in due time when they're back in the comfort of their own homes, away from all these...people. Back home where they can watch all the grainy, distant footage that's shakier than out-takes from "Cloverfield"? Back home where they can dress up naked in their "Snuggies" and watch all the excitement on their computer monitors and share their movies on "Facebook" with their horde of six equally socially retarded friends. Tell you what, why don't you just save yourself some bucks and pick up a concert DVD? I know it'll look better and really, you weren't actually gonna be there anyway.
- This is a G.G. Allin concert, right? These lunatic don't really care much that there's a band on stage. They're just looking for a disguiseable way to cause as much destruction, pain and anarchy as possible. Nana Mouskouri could be on stage and they'd still be slam dancing, moshing and crowd surfing like orangutans infected with the "Rage" virus. They are also prone to fits of unprovoked fisticuffs. Any of the following stimuli will often result in a thrown punch: (1) bumping into them unexpectedly (2) mistakenly trodding on their "kicks" (3) asking them if they have the time. Listen to me now and believe me later: give these chowder heads a wide berth!
- El Gigante I really can't fault these people for being freakishly tall. After all, these Sasquatchian mutants really shouldn't be a target for hatred just because they wanna be close to the action as well. But can't they maybe, I dunno, kneel down or something? They aren't the worst offenders anyway. I really hate the no-neck mountainoids that put their girlfriends up on their shoulders creating a spectacular view of her ass versus the band that I just paid sixty buck to see! Inconsiderate pricks!
- The Assholes That Actually Do Scream "Play 'Freebird!'" They actually exist. 'Nuff said.
FAIL:
Monday, August 2, 2010
"If you yell 'PLAY FREEBIRD!' one more time, I'm gonna punch you in the neck!" - Part III
Welcome, Kind Reader.
Y'know concerts are funny things. Every one of them is a unique collision of disparate circumstance, the recipe of which will never be the same again no matter how hard you try to mix, measure and replicate.
And every one has a story. I've probably seen no band more frequently then the pride of Kingston Ontario, The Tragically Hip. They've provided a lot of great memories for me.
It was in 1994 when The Hip (as they are affectionately known by fans) released their finest album, Day For Night. I'd always been of two minds regarding the potential of a major American breakthrough for the band. On one hand I always thought they were too good just to keep to ourselves but on the other hand I also didn't want to see them misappropriated and ruined somehow.
Regardless, they seemed on the cusp of a major breakthrough in 1995 when, thanks to considerable coercion by host Dan Ackroyd, the guys performed spine-jangling renditions of "Grace, Too" and "Nautical Disaster" on Saturday Night Live:
Everyone I knew at the time watched this event with the same interest as the Quebec Referendum (which through no co-incidence I'm sure was around the same time that year). It looked like the cat was out of the bag. Finally we'd have a musical export to truly be proud of.
Indeed, for one brief shining moment, everything in the universe made sense to me.
But "The Hip" didn't make much sense to Americans. Their performance didn't spark tinder. For the next fifteen years the band continued to be our best kept secret. I'm not sure the guys would agree with me, but I'm kinda glad it worked out the way it did.
On the subsequent "Day For Night" tour we bought our tickets as quickly as limited funds would allow. We ended up with fair to poor seats but really didn't care 'cuz we gonna be in the hizzy with one of our favorite bands.
One thing about "The Hip" is that they've always been very socially conscious. Mere hours before the show we heard on the radio that the band was raffling off front row tickets to anyone who brought along canned goods for the local food bank. Almost as an afterthought we retrieved the only appropriate things we had in the cupboard : a tin of carbon-dateable wax beans that we'd inherited from the commune on Lucknow and a can of creamed corn which may have been left over from a 1950's bomb shelter. So armed we went off to the show.
Just inside the door of the Metro Center we spied the bins for the food donations and they looked pretty sparse. In went our wax beans and creamed corn, we were given numbered tickets in exchange and then we hired a couple of Sherpas to take us to our seats.
Well, not five minutes after we'd found our spots the draw began for the front row seats. When they called my number I felt like I'd won a tax-exempt Super Powerball Lottery Sweepstakes!
And as if that wasn't enough, en route down to claim my winnings, my girlfriend's number was called! We now had four front row tickets to see our beloved Hip and we scrambled to locate two friends of ours that we knew were in attendance!
The subsequent show was one of my favorite concerts of all time. Openers The Odds were wonderfully proficient but delightfully tongue in cheek and I kinda miss their cockeyed brand of music. But our beloved headliners were stellar. Gord Downie was in fine form, at one point "taking to the street to shake his banana" whilst and at the same time indulging his penchant for butt wigglin', speaker climbing, spastic head shaking, steam of consciousness ramblings, song snippet mash-ups and microphone stand molestation. Pure friggin' genius.
I remember starting to feel a bit crusty as early as 1997 because kids younger than me didn't seem to care as much for The Hip, preferring to throw their hats into the Our Lady Peace ring instead. I've always found this rather inexplicable, but I guess this is what makes me such a cantankerous old f#@$. Like Paul Simon astutely observed: "Every generation throws it's heroes up the pop charts."
I actually did buy OLP's first album. I kinda dug the tune "Naveed" a bit but then became totally bored to death with their verse-chorus-verse songwriting and lead singer Raine Maida's off-key caterwauling. Every time I have the misfortune of hearing him warble "Superman's Dead" I just wanna punch him in the face.
But that's what music's is all about, isn't it? We all have our own unique passions. I'm certainly willing to wager that there'll be some people out there who'll read this and say the same thing about Gord Downie.
And those people should seek professional help right away. I'm not even kidding. It isn't too late for you. Honestly.
Anyway all I can do is present the evidence, and let you, the Kind Reader judge for yourself as to who is the superior! Hip rules!
Even if I were to punch Raine Maida in the face, I would swiftly feel compelled to pick him up, dust him off, straighten his lapels and then lay a big wet one on him for bringing "Summersault" to Halifax on August 16'th of 2000. This was a stellar outdoor festival of awesome bands organized and attended by OLP that blew through our burg and left me feeling as if I'd taken one giant leap in the direction of lifetime fulfillment.
The show kicked off with the Canadian answer to musical cockroaches, Finger Eleven. Not a lot of people know this but these guys actually began their careers as a preppy-looking Red Hot Chili Peppers rip-off act called (get ready for this) The Rainbow Butt Monkeys.
Don't believe me? Watch this...
That's right, folks, w-a-a-a-a-a-y back before the radio-friendly-unit-shifter called "Paralyzer" resuscitated their endless careers for the umpteenth time, these sellout chameleons where hopping around like idiots trying to do their best Flea impersonations.
Well, in 1997 they'd abandoned this dated sound and adopted the more marketable and gloomy proto-Grunge look. Here's the same band just a few short years later:
Okay, so how exactly did they make that transition from bouncy college dweebs to looking like the road crew for Slipknot?
It gets worse. When proto-Grunge became passe they obviously went on a little sabbatical and came back in 2007 looking and sounding like Nickleback with the serial numbers filed off:
Look, I know you guys gotta pick up a check every once in awhile, but can you at least be a bit more subtle with the multiple attempts at sell-outery?
Anyway I can't crap on them too much since I did buy (and enjoy) two of their albums (1998's Tip and the "Methinks Thou Dost Protest Too Much" The Greyest of Blue Skies disc from 2000). I did this mainly because pickings were kinda slim in the mid to late Nineties and I had a tendency to glom onto anything that sounded vaguely bitter and angry at the time.
Their performance at "Summersault" that year also couldn't be slighted. They certainly acquitted themselves nicely with an energetic effort and commanding sound. I do give them s#!% but even I have to admit that they seem to work like dogs so I'm willing to give 'em bit of a pass.
Also in attendance was British alt-rock outfit Catherine Wheel. Their jangly lackadaisical sound and posture of quiet introspection was wedged squarely between Finger Eleven's boisterous and electric set and the impending appearance of greater things to come. As such, their performance went over like a lead balloon. Amidst a chorus of boos and a hail of plastic bottles, the band crawled off stage while the lead singer hastily promised (in a posh Brit accent): "Goodbye, Halifax! You will never see us again!"
Kinda sad actually. They don't sound too bad. Wrong place wrong time perhaps lads?
Next up was A Perfect Circle, side project for Tool's Maynard James Keenan. I was completely obsessed with this band at the time and their showing at Summersault left me so impressed I bought one of their t-shirts at the merch tent. So it begins...
Maynard was every inch the rock deity: shirtless, bedecked in a long blond fright wig and a pair of barely-north-of-the-equator gold lame pants. He was like a hunched, shuddering wraith: the love child of Iggy Pop and Lady Gaga. Here he is performing the sacrilicious anthem "Judith" live:
While Maynard's voice was pitch-perfect the band was equally game. The Gollum-esque Billy Howerdel laid down a flawless audio tapestry of distinctive guitar stylings that veered across the spectrum of beauty and horror. Speaking of beauty, Argentinian-born bassist Paz Lenchantin enchanted us with her beguiling appearance and hypnotic bass lines (It was like The Spoons all over again!). The rhythm section was carried to dizzying heights by punishing drummer Tim Alexander and everything was held together nicely by veteran guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen.
My only negative memory of the performance was Maynard's promise that he'd come back to Halifax and bring his original band Tool with him. Dude, I'm still waiting!
Speaking of empty promises, we had the Foo Fighters up next. The crowd had already been getting pretty rambunctious but by the time the Foos hit the stage the assembled were worked up into a real lather. As the first vicious notes of "Monkey Wrench" came flying at us, everything went ballistic.
In quick succession I received a size-nine Doc Marten to the mush from a crowd surfer. Irritated that the mook had distracted us momentarily from the stage, the next time he drifted by a companion and I each grabbed one of his shoulders and power bombed him to the ground in a way that would make "The Undertaker" proud.
For a few seconds all the moron could do was just lie there, look up at us and gurgle. Still stunned, we pulled him up, dusted him off and pushed him back into the crowd saying "Dude, I thought we had you but we musta lost our grip. Sorry 'bout that!"
F#@$%^& idiot.
Meanwhile the Foo Fighters were ripping though a lean and mean set featuring now-classic tracks from their first three albums like "This Is A Call", "Everlong", and "Learn To Fly". By the time Dave Grohl took to the drum kit and Taylor Hawkins came to the forefront to perform a cover of Pink Floyd's "Have A Cigar", the crowd down below had merged into an amorphous stew of writhing humanity.
And let me tell ya, kids, I've been in some nutty situations in crowds before but this was by far the scariest. When I'm packed in like a sardine like that I usually try and get my arms up around my chest so that I can make some space and keep my lungs operating but there were a few moments when my arms were slowly being driven into my ribcage. At times I felt as if I was in the coils of the Midgard Serpent.
The Foos had decisively annihilated every one of their stage predecessors with a brash, self-assured set of pure molten rawk. What can I possibly say that this clip won't illustrate ten times better?
As a parting gift, Dave Grohl promised he'd bring the band back to do a headline show real soon.
I'm still waiting, Dave.
Crushed, kicked, bruised, dehydrated and beaten I crawled out of the impromptu rugby match and retreated up the face of Citadel Hill to take in Our Lady Peace at a distance. IMHO I kinda though they sounded like crap so I spent this time in traction, preparing for the next spectacle.
By the time the Smashing Pumpkins took the stage I was literally in a state of bliss. Unable to resist the pull of the band I made the pilgrimage back into the scrum and watched in awe as a great band in the autumn of their career blasted out one the most memorable performances I've ever been privileged to witness.
Like Dinosaur Jr. in my last entry, the Pumpkins did little to hype the crowd. They didn't have to. Their stellar musicianship spoke volumes. There wasn't a note out of place. It was truly one of the most practiced, regimented, and flawless sonic assaults I've ever seen unleashed upon an audience.
Looking like a cross between Herman Munster, Nosferatu and the Gerber Baby, lead singer/veteran contrarian Billy Corgan belted out impassioned vocals and some brutal chordage. Recently recruited ex-Hole bassist Melissa Auf De Maur made everyone forget D'arcy Wretzky even existed with her slinky and animated performance. James Iha pelted the audience with wave after wave of juicy riffage. And Jimmy Chamberlain, still one of the best drummers in the history of music, pounded out a relentless attack like a human metronome.
I hadn't purchased their swan song CD Machina: The Machines of God at that point in time but their performance of "The Everlasting Gaze" alone that night made me rush out the next day and buy it. Along with "Zero" this tune is still one of my favorites of theirs. The manic outro here is the stuff of legend and it gives me chills every time I hear it:
The Pumpkins provided a slew of unforgettable moments that night, but it as their bittersweet rendition of "1979" had a sea of lighters held aloft and nary a dry eye in the house. In a few months the band would cease to exist as we knew it.
I'm not kidding when I say this: that day changed me fundamentally. It was literally like a religious experience. It was transcendental. The music, the bands, and the performances all conspired for a moment of complete nirvana.
Which I guess is why I got so pissed off by the crowd surfer. Can you imagine having a moment of epiphany in your preferred house of worship and just at the moment of rapture someone comes along and boots you in the melon? It's a miracle I didn't declare jihad on his scrawny ass.
I suspected it then but I know it now: this was one of the best days of my life. Nothing can ever reproduce that historic day and my unique perspective in witnessing it.
I'm telling you right now: if you have any sort of passion for music don't just be content sitting at home spinning a disc or crunching bits on your iPod. Get out there. Capture your own gallery of unforgettable moments before it's too late!
EPIC:
![Foo Fighters - Live At Wembley Stadium [Blu-ray]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vIX0Ag9_7a-8PNuVl9CrjRtprplnz4zKLRYdJC5uYDAFaYmxqeQd2z0hgkceRShUnUU-xNCLyJWsZt7Tz69vNKqM9WMDIoeYiHtshERhm9eS-dqWN5LJ4vAHuF-z-vfjfEJsPvjGvAgxM-51VFzV3uo2dgllAUHfI_TDGJzEhnWX8SAeUiQebk_ujBX8z85i9msC7Po4MJoQVxzPrLexSPtYDPH618_r96=s0-d)
FAIL:
Y'know concerts are funny things. Every one of them is a unique collision of disparate circumstance, the recipe of which will never be the same again no matter how hard you try to mix, measure and replicate.
And every one has a story. I've probably seen no band more frequently then the pride of Kingston Ontario, The Tragically Hip. They've provided a lot of great memories for me.
It was in 1994 when The Hip (as they are affectionately known by fans) released their finest album, Day For Night. I'd always been of two minds regarding the potential of a major American breakthrough for the band. On one hand I always thought they were too good just to keep to ourselves but on the other hand I also didn't want to see them misappropriated and ruined somehow.
Regardless, they seemed on the cusp of a major breakthrough in 1995 when, thanks to considerable coercion by host Dan Ackroyd, the guys performed spine-jangling renditions of "Grace, Too" and "Nautical Disaster" on Saturday Night Live:
Everyone I knew at the time watched this event with the same interest as the Quebec Referendum (which through no co-incidence I'm sure was around the same time that year). It looked like the cat was out of the bag. Finally we'd have a musical export to truly be proud of.
Indeed, for one brief shining moment, everything in the universe made sense to me.
But "The Hip" didn't make much sense to Americans. Their performance didn't spark tinder. For the next fifteen years the band continued to be our best kept secret. I'm not sure the guys would agree with me, but I'm kinda glad it worked out the way it did.
On the subsequent "Day For Night" tour we bought our tickets as quickly as limited funds would allow. We ended up with fair to poor seats but really didn't care 'cuz we gonna be in the hizzy with one of our favorite bands.
One thing about "The Hip" is that they've always been very socially conscious. Mere hours before the show we heard on the radio that the band was raffling off front row tickets to anyone who brought along canned goods for the local food bank. Almost as an afterthought we retrieved the only appropriate things we had in the cupboard : a tin of carbon-dateable wax beans that we'd inherited from the commune on Lucknow and a can of creamed corn which may have been left over from a 1950's bomb shelter. So armed we went off to the show.
Just inside the door of the Metro Center we spied the bins for the food donations and they looked pretty sparse. In went our wax beans and creamed corn, we were given numbered tickets in exchange and then we hired a couple of Sherpas to take us to our seats.
Well, not five minutes after we'd found our spots the draw began for the front row seats. When they called my number I felt like I'd won a tax-exempt Super Powerball Lottery Sweepstakes!
And as if that wasn't enough, en route down to claim my winnings, my girlfriend's number was called! We now had four front row tickets to see our beloved Hip and we scrambled to locate two friends of ours that we knew were in attendance!
The subsequent show was one of my favorite concerts of all time. Openers The Odds were wonderfully proficient but delightfully tongue in cheek and I kinda miss their cockeyed brand of music. But our beloved headliners were stellar. Gord Downie was in fine form, at one point "taking to the street to shake his banana" whilst and at the same time indulging his penchant for butt wigglin', speaker climbing, spastic head shaking, steam of consciousness ramblings, song snippet mash-ups and microphone stand molestation. Pure friggin' genius.
I remember starting to feel a bit crusty as early as 1997 because kids younger than me didn't seem to care as much for The Hip, preferring to throw their hats into the Our Lady Peace ring instead. I've always found this rather inexplicable, but I guess this is what makes me such a cantankerous old f#@$. Like Paul Simon astutely observed: "Every generation throws it's heroes up the pop charts."
I actually did buy OLP's first album. I kinda dug the tune "Naveed" a bit but then became totally bored to death with their verse-chorus-verse songwriting and lead singer Raine Maida's off-key caterwauling. Every time I have the misfortune of hearing him warble "Superman's Dead" I just wanna punch him in the face.
But that's what music's is all about, isn't it? We all have our own unique passions. I'm certainly willing to wager that there'll be some people out there who'll read this and say the same thing about Gord Downie.
And those people should seek professional help right away. I'm not even kidding. It isn't too late for you. Honestly.
Anyway all I can do is present the evidence, and let you, the Kind Reader judge for yourself as to who is the superior! Hip rules!
Even if I were to punch Raine Maida in the face, I would swiftly feel compelled to pick him up, dust him off, straighten his lapels and then lay a big wet one on him for bringing "Summersault" to Halifax on August 16'th of 2000. This was a stellar outdoor festival of awesome bands organized and attended by OLP that blew through our burg and left me feeling as if I'd taken one giant leap in the direction of lifetime fulfillment.
The show kicked off with the Canadian answer to musical cockroaches, Finger Eleven. Not a lot of people know this but these guys actually began their careers as a preppy-looking Red Hot Chili Peppers rip-off act called (get ready for this) The Rainbow Butt Monkeys.
Don't believe me? Watch this...
That's right, folks, w-a-a-a-a-a-y back before the radio-friendly-unit-shifter called "Paralyzer" resuscitated their endless careers for the umpteenth time, these sellout chameleons where hopping around like idiots trying to do their best Flea impersonations.
Well, in 1997 they'd abandoned this dated sound and adopted the more marketable and gloomy proto-Grunge look. Here's the same band just a few short years later:
Okay, so how exactly did they make that transition from bouncy college dweebs to looking like the road crew for Slipknot?
It gets worse. When proto-Grunge became passe they obviously went on a little sabbatical and came back in 2007 looking and sounding like Nickleback with the serial numbers filed off:
Look, I know you guys gotta pick up a check every once in awhile, but can you at least be a bit more subtle with the multiple attempts at sell-outery?
Anyway I can't crap on them too much since I did buy (and enjoy) two of their albums (1998's Tip and the "Methinks Thou Dost Protest Too Much" The Greyest of Blue Skies disc from 2000). I did this mainly because pickings were kinda slim in the mid to late Nineties and I had a tendency to glom onto anything that sounded vaguely bitter and angry at the time.
Their performance at "Summersault" that year also couldn't be slighted. They certainly acquitted themselves nicely with an energetic effort and commanding sound. I do give them s#!% but even I have to admit that they seem to work like dogs so I'm willing to give 'em bit of a pass.
Also in attendance was British alt-rock outfit Catherine Wheel. Their jangly lackadaisical sound and posture of quiet introspection was wedged squarely between Finger Eleven's boisterous and electric set and the impending appearance of greater things to come. As such, their performance went over like a lead balloon. Amidst a chorus of boos and a hail of plastic bottles, the band crawled off stage while the lead singer hastily promised (in a posh Brit accent): "Goodbye, Halifax! You will never see us again!"
Kinda sad actually. They don't sound too bad. Wrong place wrong time perhaps lads?
Next up was A Perfect Circle, side project for Tool's Maynard James Keenan. I was completely obsessed with this band at the time and their showing at Summersault left me so impressed I bought one of their t-shirts at the merch tent. So it begins...
Maynard was every inch the rock deity: shirtless, bedecked in a long blond fright wig and a pair of barely-north-of-the-equator gold lame pants. He was like a hunched, shuddering wraith: the love child of Iggy Pop and Lady Gaga. Here he is performing the sacrilicious anthem "Judith" live:
While Maynard's voice was pitch-perfect the band was equally game. The Gollum-esque Billy Howerdel laid down a flawless audio tapestry of distinctive guitar stylings that veered across the spectrum of beauty and horror. Speaking of beauty, Argentinian-born bassist Paz Lenchantin enchanted us with her beguiling appearance and hypnotic bass lines (It was like The Spoons all over again!). The rhythm section was carried to dizzying heights by punishing drummer Tim Alexander and everything was held together nicely by veteran guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen.
My only negative memory of the performance was Maynard's promise that he'd come back to Halifax and bring his original band Tool with him. Dude, I'm still waiting!
Speaking of empty promises, we had the Foo Fighters up next. The crowd had already been getting pretty rambunctious but by the time the Foos hit the stage the assembled were worked up into a real lather. As the first vicious notes of "Monkey Wrench" came flying at us, everything went ballistic.
In quick succession I received a size-nine Doc Marten to the mush from a crowd surfer. Irritated that the mook had distracted us momentarily from the stage, the next time he drifted by a companion and I each grabbed one of his shoulders and power bombed him to the ground in a way that would make "The Undertaker" proud.
For a few seconds all the moron could do was just lie there, look up at us and gurgle. Still stunned, we pulled him up, dusted him off and pushed him back into the crowd saying "Dude, I thought we had you but we musta lost our grip. Sorry 'bout that!"
F#@$%^& idiot.
Meanwhile the Foo Fighters were ripping though a lean and mean set featuring now-classic tracks from their first three albums like "This Is A Call", "Everlong", and "Learn To Fly". By the time Dave Grohl took to the drum kit and Taylor Hawkins came to the forefront to perform a cover of Pink Floyd's "Have A Cigar", the crowd down below had merged into an amorphous stew of writhing humanity.
And let me tell ya, kids, I've been in some nutty situations in crowds before but this was by far the scariest. When I'm packed in like a sardine like that I usually try and get my arms up around my chest so that I can make some space and keep my lungs operating but there were a few moments when my arms were slowly being driven into my ribcage. At times I felt as if I was in the coils of the Midgard Serpent.
The Foos had decisively annihilated every one of their stage predecessors with a brash, self-assured set of pure molten rawk. What can I possibly say that this clip won't illustrate ten times better?
As a parting gift, Dave Grohl promised he'd bring the band back to do a headline show real soon.
I'm still waiting, Dave.
Crushed, kicked, bruised, dehydrated and beaten I crawled out of the impromptu rugby match and retreated up the face of Citadel Hill to take in Our Lady Peace at a distance. IMHO I kinda though they sounded like crap so I spent this time in traction, preparing for the next spectacle.
By the time the Smashing Pumpkins took the stage I was literally in a state of bliss. Unable to resist the pull of the band I made the pilgrimage back into the scrum and watched in awe as a great band in the autumn of their career blasted out one the most memorable performances I've ever been privileged to witness.
Like Dinosaur Jr. in my last entry, the Pumpkins did little to hype the crowd. They didn't have to. Their stellar musicianship spoke volumes. There wasn't a note out of place. It was truly one of the most practiced, regimented, and flawless sonic assaults I've ever seen unleashed upon an audience.
Looking like a cross between Herman Munster, Nosferatu and the Gerber Baby, lead singer/veteran contrarian Billy Corgan belted out impassioned vocals and some brutal chordage. Recently recruited ex-Hole bassist Melissa Auf De Maur made everyone forget D'arcy Wretzky even existed with her slinky and animated performance. James Iha pelted the audience with wave after wave of juicy riffage. And Jimmy Chamberlain, still one of the best drummers in the history of music, pounded out a relentless attack like a human metronome.
I hadn't purchased their swan song CD Machina: The Machines of God at that point in time but their performance of "The Everlasting Gaze" alone that night made me rush out the next day and buy it. Along with "Zero" this tune is still one of my favorites of theirs. The manic outro here is the stuff of legend and it gives me chills every time I hear it:
The Pumpkins provided a slew of unforgettable moments that night, but it as their bittersweet rendition of "1979" had a sea of lighters held aloft and nary a dry eye in the house. In a few months the band would cease to exist as we knew it.
I'm not kidding when I say this: that day changed me fundamentally. It was literally like a religious experience. It was transcendental. The music, the bands, and the performances all conspired for a moment of complete nirvana.
Which I guess is why I got so pissed off by the crowd surfer. Can you imagine having a moment of epiphany in your preferred house of worship and just at the moment of rapture someone comes along and boots you in the melon? It's a miracle I didn't declare jihad on his scrawny ass.
I suspected it then but I know it now: this was one of the best days of my life. Nothing can ever reproduce that historic day and my unique perspective in witnessing it.
I'm telling you right now: if you have any sort of passion for music don't just be content sitting at home spinning a disc or crunching bits on your iPod. Get out there. Capture your own gallery of unforgettable moments before it's too late!
EPIC:
FAIL:
Sunday, August 1, 2010
"If you yell 'PLAY FREEBIRD!' one more time, I'm gonna punch you in the neck!" - Part II
Greetings and Felicitations, Loyal Reader.
Every time I force my loved ones to do their best imitation of Jacob Two-Two I'm reminded of the sheer scale of abuse I've put my ears through over the years.
If I had a time machine I'd do a lot of cool, responsible and awesome things. Like go back and force Spielberg and Lucas to shoot Frank Darabont's original script for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" versus the decoy script that obviously got filmed by mistake.
Oh, and the second thing I would do is warn "L'il Dave" about the dangers of not wearing earplugs at concerts and standing adjacent to a floor-level stack of Marshal amps.
So, in the spirit of fair warning, here's "Dave's Top Five Concerts That Led To His Currently Shameful State of Hearing":
5. WILCO March 3'rd 2010. Y'know, after some of the other cochlea-stripping shows on this lists, the Gods were soon screaming in my ear to wear plugs for every show. But since I was partially deaf by then I guess I couldn't even hear the booming, Laurence Olivier-esque delivery of the Gods anymore. By rights, if they had really intended for me to get the message, they should have used telepathy. Like in that episode of "W.K.R.P. in Cincinnati" when God talked to Johnny Fever.
"DAVE, I WANT YOU TO BE A GOLF PRO! OH, AND START WEARING EARPLUGS TO CONCERTS, YOU SILLY B!%$#."
Anyhoo, I didn't wear earplugs to this Wilco show 'cuz I thought: hmmmm, nice little alt-country band...it'll be okay. WRONG! These f#@$%&^ were loud! Maybe it's because I was wedged into the crowd, shoulder-to-shoulder mere meters from the stage and the Halifax Forum Multi Purpose Room is a pretty teeny place, comparatively speaking. Whatever it was my ears were a-ringin' for days.
The show itself was fantastic. It was a real mix of modern faves and selections stretching all the way back to the beginning of their prolific careers. At one point during the show lead singer Jeff Tweedy stopped the show so we could sing "Happy Birthday" to a member of the merch crew. He then tasked the audience to deliver a "Superstore" slab cake intact from the stage to the back of the venue, passing it above our heads like a crowd-surfing edible oil product.
If you don't know anything about Wilco, by the way, here's your chance to become informed and enrich your life. Also if you think I was hedging my bet regarding the show's potential volume, just watch this clip of them performing the beautiful "War on War" on Letterman's show and then try and convince me that I had to roll a hard "6" that night to avoid a punctured eardrum...
Peppy, but not exactly "Slayer" is it? Tha's what I'm sayin', G!
4. DINOSAUR JR. SEPTEMBER 4'TH, 2006 Well I was positively pickled tink when one of my fave defunct alt-buzz rockers from the late-Eighties/early Nineties reunited for a series of small club gigs. By this time I'd smartened up a bit and was habitually wearing earplugs to live shows.
Unfortunately I was also in the habit of tearing the earplugs in half for fear of not getting the "full concert experience." After the Dinosaur Jr. show I was also made painfully aware that earplugs had a decibel limit. The band's sound system would have tested the structural integrity of the heartiest earplug at the best of times, let alone a pair that had been ripped in half (?!).
I always tell myself before a show: "Y'know, it's okay. You don't have to go to the front of the stage. You can hold back and enjoy yourself from a distance."
Yeah, I can't even keep a straight face as I type that. I never listen to myself. I always wanna be as close to the s#!% as possible. I want the visceral experience of being perspired upon by the performer.
This usually means that I find myself standing next to a stack of amps as the bass slowly turns my major organs into pudding like some sort of Congo-spawned audio-virus.
Regardless of the fact that I had to use a pair of tweezers from the game "Operation" to fish the plugs out of my inner ear canal at the end of the show, it was still pretty impressive. I'm convinced to this day that J. Mascis and company had no idea that a crowd had actually gathered to watch them play. They didn't do much to engage the audience but were forced to acknowledge our presence a few times when the appreciative crowd went feral between each impeccably delivered tune.
They played a set almost entirely composed of tracks from their first three pre-original member breakup albums. That was fine by me since each and every song was a flawless storm of distortion, melody and infallible musicianship. Usually when bands use feedback live it's as irritating as f#@$ but Dino Jr. make it a fourth instrument.
Oh, and drummer Lou Barlow is a friggin' god.
Despite the ear injury this is a gig I'll cherish forever.
Here's a tasty tidbit:
3. SHADOWY MEN ON A SHADOWY PLANET, 1991. Canada's early-Nineties surf kings who were renowned for providing the theme song and transition music for "The Kids in the Hall". Long before Jersey Shore's "The Situation" was invited by the "Pacifico" to pollute the downtown core the same space was used by the "Pub Flamingo" to exhibit real, live talent in an intimate cabaret setting. And when I mean intimate, I mean very intimate. I mean being crammed into an elevator with a three piece band and fourteen people intent on moshing. And no one is wearing pants.
I'd played SMOASP's album "Savvy Show Stoppers" incessantly in preparation of the gig, oblivious to the fact that the bands all-instrumental, surf music would be amplified exponentially in the small club. The result was that every note, every riff was the equivalent of having "Animal" from the Muppets use your ear drums to beat out a particularly frenetic version of "Wipeout".
Oh, and instead of drumsticks, someone's given Animal a pair of railroad spikes to use.
At the time I was totally oblivious. When asked I characterized their sound as "sharp and flawless". A bit too sharp and flawless perhaps? Not only were my ears adrift in a "COME IN TOKYO" sea of static for days, this one actually physically hurt me.
Here's a sampling of their amazing sound. After you listen to this I'm sure you can see the potential of grievous bodily harm if it's cranked up to "11" and contained in a space the size of a phone booth:
2. MOTLEY CRUE November 16'th, 2006 This was the show that convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that earplugs would need to become a default component of my concert-going uniform.
As a concert goer, I've actually been pretty lucky. If you were to take that oft-mentioned time traveling device back to 1983 and ask L'il Dave what his three favorite musical acts were at the time he'd tell you (with voice a-crackin' like the pimply-faced teenager from "The Simpsons"):
When me and three fellow fans caught the Crue (I hear there's now a shot you can get for that, by the way) we had no expectations whatsoever. But the boys came out like a house on fire, like they'd just piled out of a van, were pointed towards the stage and then played as if they were trying to earn new fans for the first time ever.
There were elaborate stage sets, pyro, video screens, gratuitous boobage, drums on risers, wire acts, a high-flyin' Tommy Lee and of course, prodigious amounts of of bone-shattering vollume.
Here are a few typically tranquil moments:
During the early goings of the show the band actually blew out a fleet of speakers and had to pause momentarily before the back ups kicked in. Co-incidentally they also obliterated what was left of my ragged eardrums.
1. Gowan 1990 You read it correctly here first. The "Strange Animal" himself. Lawrence friggin' Gowan.
That's right, folks. Wee little be-mulleted, Peter Pan booted Larry Gowan almost single handedly cost me one of my five senses.
Now, I know what you're thinking..."Gowan? Go onnnnn!"
Geddit? See what I did there? Gowan? "GO ON!" Funny, huh? Funny cuz it sorta, y'know...sorta sounds the same. Kinda. *Ahem.*
Actually it's much more my fault than his. Me and two other university buddies saw him at "The Palace". This was back in the day before tech crews elevated the stacks so that the sound dispersed into the ceiling rather than through the bodies of unsuspecting concert-goers like s#!$ through a goose.
So, like complete idiots, the three of us stood there next to the monolithic wall of speakers by the stage for the duration of the entire show, oblivious to the fact that the din was stripping the cilia off the inside of our ears as expertly as a sandblaster attacks graffiti.
Despite the impending life-long handicap the show was terrific. The funny thing is I'd gone that night not because I had some sort of fetish for Gowan, but mainly because it was something to do. We kinda went as a lark.
But THE MAN shut us up pretty quickly. Gowan was a friggin' dynamo, a human whirlwind, a little Scottish Bono-clone prone to fits of prancing, split-dives, fist-pumps, Spring-Heeled Jack style vaults, scissor kicks, spins, and whirling keyboards.
Don't believe me? Check this s#!% out...
I'm tellin' you man. Respec my boy. He was the Mac Daddy. Or the Daddy Mac, I'm not sure which.
Gowan: the only live act to dissuade my temptation to heckle by performing like a house on fire and rendering me deafer than Marlee Marlin.
Watch the volume kiddies and wear yer 'plugs!
EPIC:
BONUS EPIC:
FAIL: http://www.youth.hear-it.org/page.dsp?page=5154
Every time I force my loved ones to do their best imitation of Jacob Two-Two I'm reminded of the sheer scale of abuse I've put my ears through over the years.
If I had a time machine I'd do a lot of cool, responsible and awesome things. Like go back and force Spielberg and Lucas to shoot Frank Darabont's original script for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" versus the decoy script that obviously got filmed by mistake.
Oh, and the second thing I would do is warn "L'il Dave" about the dangers of not wearing earplugs at concerts and standing adjacent to a floor-level stack of Marshal amps.
So, in the spirit of fair warning, here's "Dave's Top Five Concerts That Led To His Currently Shameful State of Hearing":
5. WILCO March 3'rd 2010. Y'know, after some of the other cochlea-stripping shows on this lists, the Gods were soon screaming in my ear to wear plugs for every show. But since I was partially deaf by then I guess I couldn't even hear the booming, Laurence Olivier-esque delivery of the Gods anymore. By rights, if they had really intended for me to get the message, they should have used telepathy. Like in that episode of "W.K.R.P. in Cincinnati" when God talked to Johnny Fever.
"DAVE, I WANT YOU TO BE A GOLF PRO! OH, AND START WEARING EARPLUGS TO CONCERTS, YOU SILLY B!%$#."
Anyhoo, I didn't wear earplugs to this Wilco show 'cuz I thought: hmmmm, nice little alt-country band...it'll be okay. WRONG! These f#@$%&^ were loud! Maybe it's because I was wedged into the crowd, shoulder-to-shoulder mere meters from the stage and the Halifax Forum Multi Purpose Room is a pretty teeny place, comparatively speaking. Whatever it was my ears were a-ringin' for days.
The show itself was fantastic. It was a real mix of modern faves and selections stretching all the way back to the beginning of their prolific careers. At one point during the show lead singer Jeff Tweedy stopped the show so we could sing "Happy Birthday" to a member of the merch crew. He then tasked the audience to deliver a "Superstore" slab cake intact from the stage to the back of the venue, passing it above our heads like a crowd-surfing edible oil product.
If you don't know anything about Wilco, by the way, here's your chance to become informed and enrich your life. Also if you think I was hedging my bet regarding the show's potential volume, just watch this clip of them performing the beautiful "War on War" on Letterman's show and then try and convince me that I had to roll a hard "6" that night to avoid a punctured eardrum...
Peppy, but not exactly "Slayer" is it? Tha's what I'm sayin', G!
4. DINOSAUR JR. SEPTEMBER 4'TH, 2006 Well I was positively pickled tink when one of my fave defunct alt-buzz rockers from the late-Eighties/early Nineties reunited for a series of small club gigs. By this time I'd smartened up a bit and was habitually wearing earplugs to live shows.
Unfortunately I was also in the habit of tearing the earplugs in half for fear of not getting the "full concert experience." After the Dinosaur Jr. show I was also made painfully aware that earplugs had a decibel limit. The band's sound system would have tested the structural integrity of the heartiest earplug at the best of times, let alone a pair that had been ripped in half (?!).
I always tell myself before a show: "Y'know, it's okay. You don't have to go to the front of the stage. You can hold back and enjoy yourself from a distance."
Yeah, I can't even keep a straight face as I type that. I never listen to myself. I always wanna be as close to the s#!% as possible. I want the visceral experience of being perspired upon by the performer.
This usually means that I find myself standing next to a stack of amps as the bass slowly turns my major organs into pudding like some sort of Congo-spawned audio-virus.
Regardless of the fact that I had to use a pair of tweezers from the game "Operation" to fish the plugs out of my inner ear canal at the end of the show, it was still pretty impressive. I'm convinced to this day that J. Mascis and company had no idea that a crowd had actually gathered to watch them play. They didn't do much to engage the audience but were forced to acknowledge our presence a few times when the appreciative crowd went feral between each impeccably delivered tune.
They played a set almost entirely composed of tracks from their first three pre-original member breakup albums. That was fine by me since each and every song was a flawless storm of distortion, melody and infallible musicianship. Usually when bands use feedback live it's as irritating as f#@$ but Dino Jr. make it a fourth instrument.
Oh, and drummer Lou Barlow is a friggin' god.
Despite the ear injury this is a gig I'll cherish forever.
Here's a tasty tidbit:
3. SHADOWY MEN ON A SHADOWY PLANET, 1991. Canada's early-Nineties surf kings who were renowned for providing the theme song and transition music for "The Kids in the Hall". Long before Jersey Shore's "The Situation" was invited by the "Pacifico" to pollute the downtown core the same space was used by the "Pub Flamingo" to exhibit real, live talent in an intimate cabaret setting. And when I mean intimate, I mean very intimate. I mean being crammed into an elevator with a three piece band and fourteen people intent on moshing. And no one is wearing pants.
I'd played SMOASP's album "Savvy Show Stoppers" incessantly in preparation of the gig, oblivious to the fact that the bands all-instrumental, surf music would be amplified exponentially in the small club. The result was that every note, every riff was the equivalent of having "Animal" from the Muppets use your ear drums to beat out a particularly frenetic version of "Wipeout".
Oh, and instead of drumsticks, someone's given Animal a pair of railroad spikes to use.
At the time I was totally oblivious. When asked I characterized their sound as "sharp and flawless". A bit too sharp and flawless perhaps? Not only were my ears adrift in a "COME IN TOKYO" sea of static for days, this one actually physically hurt me.
Here's a sampling of their amazing sound. After you listen to this I'm sure you can see the potential of grievous bodily harm if it's cranked up to "11" and contained in a space the size of a phone booth:
2. MOTLEY CRUE November 16'th, 2006 This was the show that convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that earplugs would need to become a default component of my concert-going uniform.
As a concert goer, I've actually been pretty lucky. If you were to take that oft-mentioned time traveling device back to 1983 and ask L'il Dave what his three favorite musical acts were at the time he'd tell you (with voice a-crackin' like the pimply-faced teenager from "The Simpsons"):
- Ozzy Osbourne
- Iron Maiden
- Motley Crue
When me and three fellow fans caught the Crue (I hear there's now a shot you can get for that, by the way) we had no expectations whatsoever. But the boys came out like a house on fire, like they'd just piled out of a van, were pointed towards the stage and then played as if they were trying to earn new fans for the first time ever.
There were elaborate stage sets, pyro, video screens, gratuitous boobage, drums on risers, wire acts, a high-flyin' Tommy Lee and of course, prodigious amounts of of bone-shattering vollume.
Here are a few typically tranquil moments:
During the early goings of the show the band actually blew out a fleet of speakers and had to pause momentarily before the back ups kicked in. Co-incidentally they also obliterated what was left of my ragged eardrums.
1. Gowan 1990 You read it correctly here first. The "Strange Animal" himself. Lawrence friggin' Gowan.
That's right, folks. Wee little be-mulleted, Peter Pan booted Larry Gowan almost single handedly cost me one of my five senses.
Now, I know what you're thinking..."Gowan? Go onnnnn!"
Geddit? See what I did there? Gowan? "GO ON!" Funny, huh? Funny cuz it sorta, y'know...sorta sounds the same. Kinda. *Ahem.*
Actually it's much more my fault than his. Me and two other university buddies saw him at "The Palace". This was back in the day before tech crews elevated the stacks so that the sound dispersed into the ceiling rather than through the bodies of unsuspecting concert-goers like s#!$ through a goose.
So, like complete idiots, the three of us stood there next to the monolithic wall of speakers by the stage for the duration of the entire show, oblivious to the fact that the din was stripping the cilia off the inside of our ears as expertly as a sandblaster attacks graffiti.
Despite the impending life-long handicap the show was terrific. The funny thing is I'd gone that night not because I had some sort of fetish for Gowan, but mainly because it was something to do. We kinda went as a lark.
But THE MAN shut us up pretty quickly. Gowan was a friggin' dynamo, a human whirlwind, a little Scottish Bono-clone prone to fits of prancing, split-dives, fist-pumps, Spring-Heeled Jack style vaults, scissor kicks, spins, and whirling keyboards.
Don't believe me? Check this s#!% out...
I'm tellin' you man. Respec my boy. He was the Mac Daddy. Or the Daddy Mac, I'm not sure which.
Gowan: the only live act to dissuade my temptation to heckle by performing like a house on fire and rendering me deafer than Marlee Marlin.
Watch the volume kiddies and wear yer 'plugs!
EPIC:
BONUS EPIC:
FAIL: http://www.youth.hear-it.org/page.dsp?page=5154
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)