Month: July 2011

After sleeping in after the U2 concert (and revelling in the spectacle), Saturday night was calling our name and we headed down to the fairgrounds for a highly anticipated night.  On the main stage, The Tragically Hip…one of Canada’s finest bands.  On the smaller stage, M. Ward…one of folk music’s finest additions in recent years.  Unfortunately, I had to make a choice between these two excellent bands and the winner was M. Ward solely based on the fact that I’m pretty sure I can see the Hip again in my life…M. Ward…not so sure!

M. Ward is an amazing, amazing songwriter and producer and I was looking forward to hearing him and his band.  It’s interesting…I had never seen his band in photographs until the day of and I realized he has a fairly older gentleman in the band (who we joked that he must be his father!).  We found a great spot in front of the National Bank stage which is one of the smaller, intimate stages which made the show even better.

They took the stage and the next few hours were bliss.  They played my faves…Chinese Translation, Requiem, Magic Trick…you name it, they played it.  They also ended with an excellent encore of Roll Over Beethoven.  I really enjoyed the one song encore (as opposed to the multi-song encores most acts do nowadays).  It brought something special to the show.  Granted, they came back for a second encore, but at least they were one song encores.

I stumbled into the Dane Clan who were up from Sudbury so we got into a little Kapuskasing vs. Sudbury banter for awhile and then shared some beers.  I literally shared some beers after the show was done and the beer tent was closed for the night.  The next morning I awoke with a killer sore throat and the running joke for the next few days was how I got strep throat from the Dane Clan up from Sudbury.

I met up with Vero and Trish who enjoyed the Hip show (it was Vero’s first Hip show!) and afterwards I headed out with Andre and Karilee for a night on the town…well it started out that way and then we had horrible service at The Preston; some new bar.  At least we had a great shawarma at the end of the night!

I would go see M.Ward a million more times.  In fact, I heard he was in Gatineau a few months ago!  How the heck did I miss that information!?

Claude, Vero, Mike and I hit the road around 2:30 to head to Montreal for the U2 concert.  80,000 people were expected to descend into the Hippodrome and anticipation was high.  I spent a few hours mapping out what we should as I found out there was no parking on site.  I must admit that the event was very well organized…the city of Montreal had road closure maps, the Metro had suggested routes along with a special U2 Pass to use for the day, cops were on every corner willing to assist strangers to their fair city.

It was a beautiful day when we pulled into the city.  We made our way to the Metro station (where I nearly got us killed when I took a left turn on a yellow light and the bus in the opposite lane decided to keep traveling towards us.  Quite scary!), where there was already a lineup forming to get some passes for the day.  We waited in line for 30 minutes to find out that they were all out of the U2Montreal Metro passes but they gave us a few complementary tickets in order to get to the stop where they were selling the passes.

All aboard!  The Metro was easy enough to take and we hopped off and walked the rest of the way to the venue.  It was an amazing, amazing day out with not a cloud in the sky.  Sunscreen was definitely needed.  There were signs up all over the city indicating what way to walk to the Hippodrome.  I cannot comment enough on how well organized this event was.  I don’t even think Bluesfest is this well organized.  Granted, with 80,000 people attending a concert, the city needs to be prepared or be ready to deal with the consequences.

We sauntered into the lineup which was moving along swiftly.  We could see ‘The Claw’ in the distance and the excitement came over me.  We were seeing U2 again!  Sweet.  At one point a guy told us to go one way for food, or the other way to the stage.  What the heck?  We couldn’t get food closer to the stage?  Very strange.  We dumped our water bottles (no outside beverages allowed) and wandered through the packed Fan Zone where there vendors of all sorts and quite a few beers being drank.  I knew better than to sip on a few brewskis at this event as it would be impossible to move out of 80,000 people and get back to our spot.  I was going into ‘maintain hydration’ mode.  We managed to get a slice of pizza and then headed to the stage where we realized there were other concession stands with a lot less of a lineup!  The guy directing the traffic must have been trying to get everyone to head to the Fan Zone!

We arrived at the stage and surveyed the land.  Stages had been erected for this concert and there was a fair sized crowd already formed in front of the stage.  This time around, I wanted to be a little further back so I could capture the magic of the entire Claw stage.  In Toronto 2009, I was so close to the stage, that I couldn’t see what was going on with the rest of the stage…it’s so immense!

There was still a lot of space around the sound booth so we decided to go relax on the lawn for an hour and seeing that it was so bloody hot (at least 35 degrees!) I had a few beer with the boys considering the washrooms were right next to us.  15 minutes before the start of the opening act, we decided to head into the crowd.  Vero found an excellent spot on the right side of the sound stage.  We chatted for awhile and then Interpol finally hit the stage.

What can I say about Interpol?  Never heard them before, and all in all, wasn’t too much into them.  I didn’t feel they got the crowd moving at all.  Not sure what they felt about the experience.  I supposed opening up for U2 is the highlight of anyone’s career!

After Interpol, they manged to fix the screen which had a dead LED panel.  Luckily it was fixed in time for the U2 show.  During the intermission, it was a marvel to witness 80,000 people in the area.  I couldn’t get over how many people there were…40,000 on the floor, 40,000 in the stands.  I felt like everyone had run smoothly…walking through security was a breeze, scanning the tickets was simple…Bluesfest definitely has some hiccups and they generally bring in around 25-35,000 people a night.

I have described the U2 360 Stage in my previous post so I won’t get into much of that.  I will talk of some differences in my experience this time around.

– During intermission they had some really cool stats appearing on the LED screen…world population, world deaths, concert attendance, how many days it takes to tear down the stage…interesting stuff.  After fifteen minutes of stats, they switched to simply showing what time it was at various parts of the world.
– The show started off around 9:15 but the start was amazing!  Even Better than the Real Thing (and a heavy dose of Achtung Baby tracks) dominated the first 20 minutes of the show.  I was amazed at the lights, smoke, and all effects happening when they entered the stage.  I can’t even remember if this is what I saw two years ago, but it did not matter…the roar of the crowd is what mattered!
– There was a new intro to Beautiful Day which was quite amazing.  A major theme of the U2 360 Show is the song Space Oddity by David Bowie.  It opens up the show and there are references to it throughout the show.  One such reference is a member of the International Space Station (Mark Kelly) who is shown on the LED screen!  He says hello from outer space and at the end he says “Tell my wife I love her.  She knows.” which is from the song (I didn’t realize until later).  It’s also a shout out to his wife Gabrielle Giffords who was injured in the 2011 Tucson shooting (thank you Wikipedia!).  Bono then says “Do you have anything else to share with us?” and he has cut out letters saying “It’s a beautiful day” and lets them float around him.  AMAZING introduction to the song.  Fantastic!  The crowd was roaring!
– It’s quite interesting to see how the world has changed since I first saw U2 in 2001.  Back then, Aung San Suu Kyi was still imprisoned under house arrest.  In 2009, she was still imprisoned and the 360 show had people wear paper masks with her face on it.  In 2011, she had been released and there was a video message from her, showing her support for the band and their fans.  It was a crazy moment to think that ten years after hearing about the struggles of this woman, that she was finally free.
– Very cool to hear a strong Achtung Baby set…Even Better than the Real Thing, The Fly, Mysterious Ways, Until the End of the World, Zooropa, One…awesome!
– Claude got to finally hear his U2360 incarnation of Pride.  He was going nuts!
– As always, Streets is a highlight for me but I would have to say hearing Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me for the first time live was my personal highlight.  The crowd seemed to eat it up.
– All in all, Claude and I were not impressed with our section of the crowd.  So much, that I am contemplating going to their Moncton show in a few weeks.  I believe it was a combination of people burnt out from the hot day, too much beer, smoking…that brought their mood down.  There were many times were I thought Claude and I were the only ones singing around us!  The crowd was not moving around us at all.  I felt robbed of the ultimate U2 experience.  Maybe that’s the sacrifice of being so far away from the stage?  However, while listening to the bootleg of the concert, I realize that the crowd WAS really loud so maybe I was just affected by my own section.

The end of the concert was an unexpected visitor.  Halfway through Moment of Surrender, torrential downpours started on the crowd!  It was crazy.  Wind was blowing hard, rain was hitting us from all sides.  It was never expected as the forecast had said it would be a clear night!  U2 even broke out into a snippet of Rain by the Beatles which was fun!  But 80,000 people exiting the area is bad enough on a good night, it was horrible on this wet, wet night.  The rain did not let up all night.  We ended up walking to the nearest Metro station but that was jam packed to the gills so we decided to walk to the Metro station BEFORE ours so we can get the train before the jam packed station.  Unfortunately for us, we had assumed the Metro station was along Decarie but it was up a few blocks so we had walked by 2-3 stations before asking a cop who let us know we were off by a few blocks. We were soaked to the bone.  My wallet is still soaked, five days later!  It was ridiculous.  We were quite the sorry sight hopping onto the subway.  It didn’t help that we had to get back out there and walk to the car and then drive home for 2 hours in soaking underwear.  🙁  However, in the end of it all, it was a great night.

I read an article that said something to the effect that you don’t have to be a fan to enjoy a U2 show because it’s not just a rock show, it’s an event.  It’s a spectacle.  That’s what it was…I highly encourage anyone reading this to catch the last remaining dates of the U2360 tour.  It’s well worth your while!

Even Better Than The Real Thing
The Fly
Mysterious Ways
Until The End Of The World
I Will Follow
Get On Your Boots
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
Beautiful Day
Elevation
Pride (In The Name Of Love)
Miss Sarajevo
Zooropa
City Of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I’ll Go Crazy / Discotheque
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Scarlet
Walk On

Encore

One
Where The Streets Have No Name

Encore 2

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
With Or Without You
Moment Of Surrender
Rain (Beatles) – Snippet

Photos from Aerialcam.ca

Got to the fairgrounds a little late on Thursday due to an excellent supper at Churchill’s Pub in Westboro.  Ended up missing the Sheepdogs, but no matter.  I was quite tired so I didn’t mind hanging out at the Winery booth with Vero, Martin, Jill and Trish.

Girl Talk was on the Claridge stage when we came in.  What can I say about Girl Talk?  Pretty cool idea of mashing up tunes together.  What can I say about Girl Talks’ stage presence?  So…you’re a DJ with a bunch of people partying on your stage and you jump around once awhile….that’s it?  Well, I guess I have no better ideas for what a DJ can do in a live stage show so kudos to him!  Wait…lazers would be awesome.

The Steve Miller Band came on around 9:30 and the Twin Peaks spot had become lawn chair city.  Pretty ridiculous actually but we tried the right side of the stage.  For the first few songs it was a gong show with us being in the main path of travel and some extremely drunk woman hanging out with us.  However, when we saw an opening ahead of us, we legged ‘er a little closer and in the end, things were good for the majority of the show!

So, the Steve Miller Band is one of those bands where I don’t own any albums, but know the majority of the songs.  Fantastic!  What a great show.  Steve Miller can still deliver the sweet guitar solos and the rest of the band is fantastic.  I still can’t get over how many awesome tunes they have.  This is also Vero’s kind of show.  She was loving every minute of it while she admitted that she only recognized 1/4 of the shows.

All in all, a great Bluesfest night.  The weather has been perfect so far!

Setlist:

Jet Airliner
Take the Money and Run
Abracadabra
The Stake
Swingtown
Further On Up The Road (Bobby “Blue” Bland cover)
Tramp (Otis Redding cover)
Ooh Poo Pah Doo
Shu Ba Du Ma Ma
Fly Like An Eagle
Wild Mountain Honey
Dance Dance Dance
Serenade
Living In The USA
Rock ‘N Me
Jungle Love
Gangster of Love
Space Cowboy
The Joker

Last night Karilee was trying to find us and I texted back that we were at Twin Peaks.  Granted, I don’t think she got the text message until after the show, but I thought I would explain what our meeting area for the past two nights has been.

Essentially, the easiest way to find a spot in the crowd is use landmarks to guide your way.  For example, years ago in the Kapuskasing Arena, Mike and I would meet under a certain ceiling fan from the stage (let’s say the third ceiling fan from the stage).  So that way, you can look up and realize if you are off the mark or not.  With 30,000 people at an event, you can be trying to figure out where your friends are all the time simply by meandering around the crowd!

So in years past, we had an excellent system.  “Left speaker of the main stage, and then back by three trees (the trees were lined up all along the fairgrounds in equal distance)” but now we have a new stage layout.

In the end, I have deemed our meeting area the Twin Peaks.  It is “Left screen (or maybe speaker now…last night I was at the speaker and Vero was looking for me at the screen.  That’s a difference of 15 feet.  15 feet can mean a lot in a crowd of 30,000 people!) at the front, and to your right is the Twin Peaks; the spot between the merchandise tent and the beer tent.  I have included a diagram for those interested!

Showed up at Trish’s place with a 12-pack under my arm and spent some time on her front porch until she got home.  Then I met her neighbour who turns out to be a uber-Pearl Jam like myself (maybe more so!) so it was great to geek out with a fan of that caliber.

Vero, Trish and I then headed down to the fairgrounds.  The front gate seemed a little cramped as well as the North gate so we decided to try out the gate on the other side of the War Museum.  Perfect, perfect choice and it led us straight to the Hard Rock stage where there were approximately six people there waiting for Whale Tooth.  I picked up a few beers (which I haven’t even mentioned yet…Mill Street is once again at the event and I’m a happy camper.  Plus, they have a Ginger Beer which is pretty darn good.) and met up with Andre and Karilee who brought me to the front rail in front of the stage.  I think that may have been the first time I have ever been that close to the stage which was cool!  We were there to see Whale Tooth…a band from Toronto whose members share Andre as one of their friends.

Seriously, right when the first song started up, I knew I would love this band.  Energetic rhythm, kick-ass female lead vocals, some harmonies once in awhile, sharply dressed…this was indie rock at its best.  I love something that gets you moving and they got me moving.  My ultimate litmus test is whether or not Vero liked the band (she is quite harsh on bands sometimes!) and she loved them.  Mission accomplished!  They even nailed a cover of a Blondie tune whose name escapes me at the moment.  I believe they impressed everyone.  I couldn’t even buy their CD at the end of the night!  Sold out!  What the heck?!  This will definitely not be the last time I see this band and I highly encourage everyone to check out Whale Tooth if they have a chance.

I received a text message from Maren saying she was over at the Roots stage and it turns out that the cell towers were wonky again tonight (text messages not being sent, received, delayed, etc.) so she never got my text asking where she was until three hours later!  Doh!  Oh well.  I headed over there and listened to the Roots for awhile.  I am definitely not one with the hip-hop, but Dave had told me I would enjoy their live show.  They were energy on stage and I enjoyed what I heard, but I’m a solid rock and roll guy through and through.

Unfortunately for me, when I had run off to get a beer with Steve, I ended up returning to our ‘other’ spot which is closer to the main stage and not where my friends were waiting.  I had thought I had told them to meet me at the main stage but they were waiting for me for 30 minutes.  I felt pretty bad but that still is no excuse for Andre and Mike drinking the beer I left with Trish!  Bastards!  I was counting on that beer since I was buying another beer for birthday boy Mark!

Ben Harper and the Relentless7 took the stage and it was like I was at Bluesfest a year ago…last year I didn’t know much Ben Harper.  Since then, I picked up a few killer albums and enjoyed every moment of the night.  I can’t begin to describe how great this act is.  This is an excellent blues/folk act to follow.  I felt that Ben’s voice wasn’t up to par this night…I think he was struggling with the higher notes.  But that man can play some sweet, sweet slide guitar.

It was a good collection of songs.  A lot from their “White Lies for Dark Times” album and a few which must be from his new solo album.  The piece de resistance was ending the night with Zeppelin’s ‘No Quarter’ and CSNY ‘Ohio’.  Fantastic!

I can’t say I had too many complaints last night.  I am starting to enjoy the new stage layout.  I find I can stroll in and out of the crowd easily (and more easier than years past) which is a great thing.  I didn’t think it was possible but it looks like this may actually be a decent stage layout for Lebreton Flats.

I want to put a special shout out to Mark Monahan and crew for making some logistical adjustments on the fly (adding more gates, etc.).  Bluesfest is a hard beast to keep running and the crew makes the effort to make sure people are having a good time.

Now, where the heck can I get a Whale Tooth album?!

Setlist:

Faded
Number With No Name
Burn to Shine
Lay There & Hate Me
Diamonds On The Inside
Dirty Little Lover
Burn One Down
Walk Away
Don’t Give Up On Me Now
Ground On Down
Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Free
Fly One Time
No Quarter (Led Zeppelin cover)
Ohio (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young cover)

This year introduced the element of the unknown in a different layout at Bluesfest.  Who knows if we would have a rocking good time on the first night out which is usually fraught with logistical issues?

Vero and I headed down to Bluesfest and ended up at the main gate in the lineup from Hell…I would say we would need to wait another 30 minutes before getting in.  Luckily Vero discovered a few other entry points that had opened up on the North side so we managed to get in without too much fuss (although it took a few minutes for their scanners to scan my ticket).

I’m going to speak of some logistical issues later, but I figure I should tell you a little bit about the bands.

The Flaming Lips are a band that I really don’t know all that well.  I know they’ve been around for quite some time and have quite the fan following as well as a solid live show.  The live show did not disappoint in terms of theatrics…Wayne coming out into the crowd in a giant bubble while confetti is thrown everywhere and girls dressed as Dorothy (Oz) dance on the sidelines.  I also thoroughly enjoyed the camera which was attached to the microphone which gave us an interesting view of the singer while he was speaking!  Overall, I thought their show was energetic, but I didn’t really click with the music and the logistics of Bluesfest were a little daunting to me.

As for Soundgarden, I’m going to have my friend Andre add his review as he is a uber-fan, but I will say this…excellent, excellent concert and it threw Bluesfest into overdrive on the first night.  The band is in top shape considering they haven’t been around for 14 years.  Chris Cornell can still wail and Matt Cameron is always one of my fave drummers.  I will leave Andre to speak about the rest.

Some logistics:

First up, the lineups were ridonculous when coming into the event around 6:45PM.  People have told us that there were two lineups in the front…one for ticket holders and one for those who have to pick up. We were still in the ticket holder lineup and it easily would have been 30 minutes if we didn’t move.
The lack of water stations is crap in my opinion especially after having some for the past few years. Water is a necessity, is it not?  I bet you’ll save a lot of people from heat exhaustion.  I have a feeling that Government funding for the festival was a big addition in the past few years (water stations, Byward Market concerts) but I am going to assume that funding (some or all?) was cut and that’s why we don’t get the perks. To have to seek out the sole water fountain on the premises was a large strike iour eyes. Even if I drink the beer!

I didn’t mind the sound bleed between stages but have heard it was mainly in the rear stages (Subway and Hard Rock). The only time I noticed it was when Soundgarden were between songs. It would be totally different if the sound bleed was DURING the set and affecting my viewing of it…I remember Rush overpowering the Swell Season. That was ridiculous. But in my personal opinion, the sound bleed did not affect me.

The layout…I’m undecided at this point…I was really upset with it when coming in for the first while but when Soundgarden started up I felt that I was still the same distance that I usually am in past years; at the ‘left speaker, third three from the stage’ AND I had a lot more room to maneuver AND it wasn’t that hard for me to hop out and get a drink. If I had the choice, I would choose the old layout, but for the time being, I need a few extra days of rocking to come to a decision. I know for a fact that Andre was quite smart in going to the right side of the stage for Soundgarden, whereas I was trying to figure out a spot that would be to be at each night. Not sure if I want to always sway from one extreme (left of Claridge) to the other (right of MBNA) each night.

So all in all, the first hour was crap but Soundgarden and my excellent spot and some beers made me get over alot of the growing pains.

Setlist:

Black Rain
Searching With My Good Eye Closed
Let Me Drown
Spoonman
Jesus Christ Pose
My Wave
The Day I Tried to Live
Blow Up the Outside World
Hunted Down
Ugly Truth
Fell on Black Days
Burden in My Hand
Black Hole Sun
Rusty Cage
Outshined
Beyond the Wheel
Encore:
Loud Love
Superunknown
Slaves & Bulldozers