Category: Concert Reviews

After having an excellent steak dinner supplied by Mike and visiting Rob for a bit (where I showed Ryley how I learned a Jonas Brothers song to find out that he didn’t really care for that one anyhow…mental note…find out the songs the kid likes BEFORE learning them. No worries…the thing took 2 minutes to learn.), Joe, Mike, Vero and I headed out to the Capital Music Hall to catch the Trews.

We have seen The Trews quite a bit in the past…once at Barrymore’s where we were introduced to this rock band, another time at Algonquin College for Frosh Week, then at Tulip Festival where we braved torrential downpour and then an intimate showing at Carleton University . This time around, they are touring in support of their third album “No Time For Later”. After a dozen spins, I have determined that I find Den of Thieves to be a better album but not by much. I do enjoy this album quite a bit. It’s got some great hooks, riffs, melodies, you name it, they got it.

When I see The Trews, I feel like I am watching Aerosmith of old. They can rock. Like, REALLY ROCK.

The opening band was called My Darkest Days and they are originally from Peterborough. Upon doing some research, I found out that they still have yet to release a first album but I must admit that they definitely have some great potential. They reminded me a lot of Three Days Grace (and Mike pointed out that the guitarist had the same mannerisms) and it turns out that a member of the band is brother’s with a member of Three Days Grace, hence, a connection both in blood and music. I would recommend you see them whenever you get the chance if you are fan of that type of music. We discovered the sweet spot in the club in terms of audio…the vocals were CRYSTAL CLEAR. Vero commented that she has never actually understood words before at a concert because it is so muffled. This was not the case tonight.

After another beer and staking our claim on the floor, we waited awhile for The Trews to hit the stage. Watching a band in a club is definitely different than watching it at the hockey arena where the by-law has them end at 11PM. Here in the club, they don’t hit the stage until 10:45.

The ripped into ‘No Time for Later’ and rocked our socks off. They now have a keyboardist on tour with them and I absolutely believe a keyboardist is necessary for full-out classic rock. It’s a staple. This guy (I can’t find his name right now) was really giving ‘er on the keyboards and was a welcome addition to the band.

The best thing about The Trews is that they have nailed the formula for some catch choruses that has everyone singing. Tired of Waiting, So She’s Leaving, No Time for Later…it’s music built for the stage.

They really picked out a lot of songs from their new album which was great to see live. Once again, Colin added bits of other songs into the mix which I personally love to do as a singer, 30 Days in the Hole, Gimme Shelter…they even had a full-blown cover of The Weight by The Band with everyone taking their turn at singing vocals.

After the encore a bunch of people left and we managed to get closer to the stage but I could tell right away that we exited the ‘nice audio’ zone and the vocals were kind of muffled. I now realize that to get the optimum live experience, you really have to position yourself a good 15-20 feet away from the stage.

A great night with The Trews and company. It’s nice to see Vero out at a rock concert once in awhile and it’s nice to see that Mike finally got a new t-shirt (which, incidentally says “Palmer Inn” on it!)

Here is a setlist from the Kingston show which I modified from what my memory said was played last night…

No Time For Later
Dark Highway

Not Ready to go
Can’t Stop Laughing (with an intro saying it was written for some guy in Newfoundland who wanted a song written about him)

So She’s Leaving

Feel the Rain
Yearning
Ishmael & Maggie (only the greatest pubhouse song ever)

Poor Ol’ Broken Hearted Me

Fleeting Trust

Gun Control
Paranoid Freak
Hold Me in Your Arms
Long Road to Freedom
Drums
Tired of Waiting (with 5446 and These Arms of Mine)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Weight (The Band)
Burning Wheels

Jeff Martin, originally uploaded by lifemusicmedia.

Mike and I went to see Jeff Martin (of Tea Party fame) at the Centrepointe Theater in Nepean. We wondered what kind of atmosphere there would be had at a community theatre but our fears were laid to rest when you the reader realize that our meaning of ‘atmosphere’ equals ‘is there a bar?’ and the answer was yes. There was a bar. Which served some god awful choices of beer.

I ended up ordering a Steamwhistle (which isn’t a bad beer…USUALLY), but we had to drink it fast as the show was about to start. Ugh…that beer was horrible. We rushed into the theatre, took our seats four rows from the stage which was FABULOUS and settled in.

Unfortunately, we settled in for the opening set of two guys from Ireland (who may or may not have been Indian. Mike thinks so, I think not. The jury is still out on this one.) They started off with a decent-paced acoustic number which didn’t really stir anything in me. Before their second song started the singer said “Alright, let’s bring it down a notch for a moment.”

At this point, not five minutes into the show I realized that this would be quite entertaining…as in I would have plenty to mock them about. For example, all there is on stage is one guy with this acoustic guitar and then the other guy singing into the microphone. Hey, that’s great and all, but when you mention that you have to tone it down for the next number and in reality, you haven’t brought it up any with your first number, you have to wonder about the cliché statements ‘rock stars’ make. Either way, Mike and I kind of gave each other the look and settled in for the rest of their set, which was kind of horrible. If I were to see them in a pub in Ireland, I think I would have been alright with them. But at this moment, in this theatre, waiting for Jeff Martin to play, it looked like we were watching two pretty boys up on stage. Sigh.

Another great part of their performance is when they left the stage there really wasn’t any requests for encores and people were leaving to get a beer but they came back out. “The guys backstage said we had to come out and play one more tune!”. A mandatory encore? Nuh uh…only the Smashing Pumpkins get to pull that trick out of the bag.

After another beer (a Creemore this time around…thank the heavens), we hung around the lobby and headed back in around 8:45 to see Jeff Martin in action. This was a lowkey gig…him on the acoustic guitar and Wayne P. Sheehy on percussion. This was great as I had never seen Jeff Martin in an acoustic setting before.

This man is the master of his instrument…he is the new Jimmy Page. I have always enjoyed his music and his otherworldly lyrics and its Eastern flair. I had a taste of what he was going to deliver at tonight’s show as I had ordered a bootleg a few weeks back of a recent show.

Wayne Sheehy was a sight to see on percussion. At first I didn’t know what to make of him…he would have these spastic movements and dance around a little but he was a machine; hitting the cymbals with nothing but his hands and when he did use a drum stick he would pound them so hard that you would see bits of wood flying off and then he would have to duct tape them back together in between songs.

Jeff Martin is very entertaining as an musician as well as a storyteller. He would frequently talk about what is going on in life (like the creation of a new electric rock trio called the Armada), or how a song was created, and even presented a new song (Line in the Sand). He frequently medleyed (is that even a verb? I highly doubt it) songs into his songs…we had teases by the Arcade Fire (Rebellion), Zeppelin (Gallow’s Pole) and even Massive Attack (Inertia Creeps).

I was excited to hear a couple of my favourite tracks – Psychopomp and Requiem played back to back. He also covered a few Daniel Lanois tunes (I Love You and The Messenger). He also playing Coming Home which is this killer track from Edges of Twilight and he was saying how they never used to play this because the drummer couldn’t ever play it live. I had a good laugh at that.

You can’t go wrong with the slide guitar either on Sun Going Down/Black Snake Blues. He is the master.

As always he ended off with Sister Awake and took hold of the bongo drums for a bit. It was quite the different version as most of it consisted of his take on Inertia Creeps.

All in all, it was a typical Ottawa crowd, very quiet during the songs (which is understandable in a theatre while we’re sitting down) and at one point he wanted us to sing and everyone started, realized not everyone was singing so they all shut up and he commented “Oh Ottawa, so shy, so shy.”

His vocals were the strongest I’ve ever heard them. I actually picked up his “Live at the Enmore Theatre” DVD the day after and noticed that his vocals aren’t strong at all in that performance. His vocal strength reminded me of the old days of Tea Party (from Transmission years) where he would belt it out.

An amazing intimate show that I would definitely pay good money to see again. But do I prefer Jeff Martin in full out electric rock more than acoustic? I would say it’s 50/50 and he puts on an excellent acoustic show.

I can’t remember the exact setlist but it definitely resembles the track listing from the bootleg I recently purchased so I’ll post it here:

The Bazaar
Psychopomp
Requiem
I Love You (Daniel Lanois)
The Messenger (Daniel Lanois)
A Line in The Sand
Coming Home
Release
Winter Solstice (but I swear he also played the Badger?)
The Kingdom
Sun Going Down/Black Snake Blues
Sister Awake

Mike and I headed downtown to see Raine Maida at the Capital Music Hall. Raine Maida is out there supporting his solo album The Hunter’s Lullaby. While he cites influences of spoken word poetry, the album only touches upon that aspect in a few songs. It’s a more interesting album than a regular rock album from Our Lady Peace. It acoustic based, with keys, cello, good drum beats. All in all, a good album.

We started off the night going to the Lonestar Restaurant with Krista, Jill, Meghan and Julie. Good times were had and the chicken chimichanga is pretty darn good. Palmer-approved.

We headed over to the Capital Music Hall and found an immense line-up to get in. That was quite strange to see at 8:30! What is even more surprising is the place was PACKED when we got in. Billy the Kid was on stage at the time and she was loads of fun. I will probably pick up an album. Mike then realized there was a flux of people in the back towards the bar and we found a great spot to stand closer to the stage.

Raine came out to introduce Jared Paul who is a spoken word artist. He was quite interesting…most of the time he didn’t use the microphone so the crowd had to hush up to listen to the words he was saying. Quite the interesting technique. At one point the crowd was losing interest so he had to switch to the microphone to keep our attention. I thought he had some interesting thoughts and I enjoyed the way he delivered them (never seeing a spoken word artist before). Mike then started a discussion about how he didn’t appreciate how people who had access to a crowd just spout out their views without saying “But inform yourselves and don’t take my word for Gospel.” This started a great debate which lasted until 3AM and in the end neither one of us had managed to convince the other so we ended on that note.

Raine Maida hit the stage with his wife Chantal Kreviazuk on keyboards, as well as a drummer and cellist (celloist? Cello-player?). Very subdued show, as in it isn’t full out rock like Foo Fighters. But it was great nonetheless. Sometimes it’s great just to absorb the music and the words he has to say. He even commented that it was different playing for a crowd that isn’t crowd surfing or pumping their fists in the air.

I believe he played his entire album (but I can’t remember and I pulled the setlist below from their show in Edmonton which seemed very similar, if not exactly the same) and he had a bunch of covers. First he spoke of how Neil Young had stated in an interview a few months ago that “Anyone who believes that music can change the world is naïve.” Raine found this hard to swallow considering some of the more….influential songs he has had in his past. Raine was thinking about it and blogged about it but after the days went by he realized that maybe Neil was stoned when he said it. Ha ha. They then played a great version of Ohio.

Later on in the show they introduced a song by a Canadian band who’s singer Raine thought was cute. I really didn’t recognize the song until the chorus…it was Try Honesty by Billy Talent! It’s quite different to hear a punk song turned into an acoustic ballad. It was very moving and I realized that sometimes with punk songs, you don’t really pay attention to the lyrics. Actually, I find I don’t pay attention to too many lyrics and I’ve started to change that in the past year to help me with my songwriting craft. I recommend you go on Youtube to find a video of Raine Maida playing Try Honesty.

Chantal also sang a Pixies cover song “Where is My Mind” which was good but I have never heard the song myself. During the encore Raine started singing Innocent and the crowd was singing along and then Raine asked us to sing louder and asked if we were just a bunch of conservatives in this town of Ottawa. The crowd definitely upped the volume on the singing after that comment and afterwards Raine remarked that he now knows how to get a bunch of people from Ottawa all riled up. I wish every artist would do that in the future!

All in all, I really enjoyed Raine Maida’s show and I am anxious for any live material to come along. Especially if it includes one of his rare tracks called Victim of a Small Town which I had never heard before but fell in love with.

Careful What You Wish For
Sex Love & Honey
The Snake and the Crown
Victim of a Small Town (new song? I’d never heard it before)
Earthless
Ohio (Neil Young cover)
The Less I Know
Confessional
China Doll
Try Honesty (Billy Talent cover)
Yellow Brick Road
Rat Race

Encore:
Where is My Mind (Pixies cover performed by Chantal)
Innocent
One Second Chance

After my Great Philosophers midterm, I headed over to Krista’s where Eric, Mike and Joe had already gathered for a few beer.  After changing into some more comfortable clothes, we made our way to the Royal Oak pub, had some decent fish and chips and drove out to the ScotiaBank place to see Foo Fighters.

I hadn’t seen Foo Fighters since Summersault 2000 in Barrie (home of the final Smashing Pumpkins V1 performance I saw).  I can’t say I’ve really followed Foo Fighters other than the obligatory tunes over the radio.  In the past year I have since changed that error in my life and had picked up their two newest albums as well as their classic “The Colour and The Shape” album which is quite darn fantastic.  I was excited to see Foo Fighters in action tonight as I knew they were ramping up their show to play in Europe in the next few months.  Europe stadiums are no easy feat so you have to pull out all of the stops.

Upon entering and being frisked by security, I nabbed a beer (to my dismay, you were only allowed to purchase one beer at a time!  This hindered any good will to my friends in that I couldn’t buy them a beer unless they were there with me at the time) and we headed down to the floor.  It was quite packed but as soon as the opening band left the floor cleared out and we got a decent spot at stage left, right next to the catwalk.

Foo Fighters turned out to be an excellent show.  Dave Grohl is renowned for his camaraderie and funny stories and he didn’t let up during the show.  It was high octane for the first half…doling out hits from their new album, as well as the killer hits of yesteryear.  Dave made use of the giant catwalk which spanned the entire length of the ice rink (going all the way back to the sound booth) and was in full heavy rock garb…black to the bone.  They definitely added a lot of extended jams into their songs and showed off their guitar skills with Dave on one end of the catwalk and Chris Shiflett (rhythm) on the other end both trying to outdo each other.

Let’s be honest…any good rock show has a great drum solo and Taylor Hawkins performed superbly.  Sidenote: I heard Rush made an appearance at the Foo’s show in Toronto on Saturday and they played YYZ.  Awesome.  Endsidenote.  They were having fun on the stage at this point of the show and I swore they ended one particular song 10 times and the song lasted 20 minutes.  It just never ended which was hilarious.  I personally dig bands who get into the music and like to jam around and noodle…others…not so much.  They want their hits.

Clearly this was the case at the Scotiabank Place.  I gave the band two thumbs up and I have the crowd two thumbs down until after 2/3 of the show and then the crowd in front of us was quite riled up and I gave them one thumb up.  I felt very…disappointed in the crowd to be honest.  When the full out rock show is going on, you shouldn’t just stand there!  Wave an arm around at least!  Move your feet.  Tap to the beat.  Argh…Ottawa, thou hast forsaken me.

The show turned acoustic after the first third and the band all walked down the catwalk to the other end of the rink where an acoustic setup stage was descending from the rafters.  Neat!  We held our ground near the front stage and we could still see what was going on at the other end.  I thought this was a great idea as it let the band play closer to the people in the stands at the lonely end of the rink.  They played a few tracks acoustically (as well as But, Honestly, only my fave track from the new album) and Dave ended off by talking about the last time they came into town as the opening band for Bob Dylan and how Bob didn’t really socialize all that much but when they got to Ottawa someone told Dave that Bob wanted to talk to him.  Fearing the wrath of Bob, he met him in a dark hallway and Bob was dressed in black and he says “Dave, I really dig that one song you do that goes like this…” and then Dave starts playing Everlong for us.  It was great.  He ended off the song getting back to the main stage with the full band.

The encore was quite hilarious in that they had screens showing a night-vision camera going backstage and finding the band asleep and we had to cheer them back onto stage.  Dave had joked earlier about how their concert should last about 40 minutes…but then he upped it to 45, then 50, and finally up to 2 hours.  He did the same schtick behind stage asking how many songs we wanted to hear for the encore.  They finally came out where Dave told a story of how Taylor got sick off of tequila in his house one time.  The ended off well with some good hits like Big Me, Long Road to Ruin and One By One (which through the crowd into a frenzy.  I had forgotten about that song!).

Full out rock.  Highly entertaining.  Foo Fighters are up there in the stadium rockers.  They know how to put on a good show musically, as well as have some great stories to tell.  It’s too bad that crowd was quite the letdown.

Opening band:

Against Me

 

Setlist

Let It Die
The Pretender
Times Like These
Breakout
Learn to Fly
Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running)
This Is a Call
Stacked Actors

@Set[Acoustic]
Skin and Bones
Marigold [Nirvana]
My Hero
Cold Day in the Sun
But, Honestly

@Set[ ]
Everlong @Info[Solo into full band]
Monkey Wrench
All My Life

Big Me
Long Road to Ruin
Best of You

@Info[Soundcheck included “The Pretender”, “Disenchanted Lullaby”, and a new song]

P1070209, originally uploaded by palm0014.

Saturday afternoon, Mike and I headed to pick up Eric for his surprised birthday event; an afternoon with Don Ross at a guitar clinic.

I was introduced to Don Ross by Troy. Don Ross (of Ontario) is a finger style guitar player and is quite amazing…so amazing that he has won the North American finger style championship twice in his life; a feat that has not been duplicated as of yet. I find his stuff amazing and he puts all those other guitarists you see on YouTube to shame (alright, not to shame but he is pretty darn good.) He uses the guitar like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

So a few weeks ago I was walking through University of Ottawa and saw a poster indicating he was giving a guitar clinic over at Carleton University. I asked Troy if it’s worth going to see and he responded with an enthusiastic YES! So then I realized that it was the same weekend as Eric’s birthday and knowing that Eric shares the same likes as Mike and I, I realized that he probably would find Don Ross to be impressive.

The plan was hatched. First, I had to get in touch with his wife to see if she would be at home on Saturday or not. Unfortunately, she was working but in the end, managed to find a baby-sitter. Excellent! Tickets were ordered, the date approached.

Saturday morning I realized that there was a kink in the plan…what if Eric was out with his kid when we went to pick him up? I quickly called him and arranged to ‘jam’ with him after lunch, ensuring he would remain at the house.

At 12:30, we headed over, gave him some instructions on the event we were going to, headed out after the babysitter came along and voila, we were going to see Don Ross!

He was playing at the Southham Hall at Carleton University (where we also saw the Trews last year). It’s a nice auditorium with about 444 seats inside. We managed to snag a seat about 7 rows from the stage, but there is no bad spot in the house. It’s the size of a classroom…not some concert hall.

Don Ross came on stage and started out with one of his tunes, Dracula II Mikrokosmos. Troy once told me that he names his songs about things he’s thinking about at the time…Lord only knows what he was thinking about at this time! He then also played another tune (to which I don’t remember the title). He then began the guitar clinic portion of his show and started explaining the difference between his regular guitar and his baritone guitar (both constructed by Marc Beneteau…I believe the same guy that Troy got his custom made guitar from). Essentially (and this will get technical for some readers, and at the same time, was too technical for me to comprehend at some parts), a regular guitar has equally spaced frets along the fret board and everything is all about harmonics and the stretching of the string, yada yada yada. But this baritone guitar was constructed in a way that the fret board does not have equally spaced frets…in fact they looked like they were fanning across the fret board where some the frets closest to the bridge fan from left and then to right as it hits the top of the fret board. It had something to do with the fact that…ah man, I don’t even know if I can explain it. It had something to do with putting the guitar in a more natural state…more in tune with nature, so to speak. Something to do with the fact that nothing in nature is equally spaced (like the frets) and that the intervals between the frets should be spaced differently. If I find some information on what he was talking about, I’ll send it out. Either way, he said that this style of guitar is getting more and more popular as the regular stringed instrument was kind of a ‘best they could come up with’ solution but ‘not perfect’.

He then played another tune (unknown?) and took some questions from the audience. One guy talked about the tune he just played and how his high string ALWAYS snapped when tuning it and Don gave him some tips as to how he can avoid it. He then went into the fact that he has all sorts of different tunings for his songs. Later on in the guitar clinic, he talked more about the different tunings and how he went about finding a different tuning. He would start out with a melody in his head and start playing it…for example he was playing a tune that resembled a Bruce Cockburn tune. But then at one point he realized that in order to hit one of the finger positions on the guitar he would have to stretch the heck out of his hand to match the tune in his head. So he would just tune the bottom string a different way to make it more convenient. Then he would go along and realize that he would need to tune another string to make it easier. I found this fascinating (but sometimes bewildering to understand…talks of fourths, fifths, relative minors…I know them fairly well but there was some stuff which went right over my head. I noticed Eric had the same feeling at some points and he was lost completely in what Don was talking about.) It was still great to hear a guitar God talk about things we don’t understand.

He also talked about the importance of theory and how he wanted to join the music department at a University but failed the music theory exam, and subsequently had to move with his parents to Toronto (from Montreal). He then realized that he needed to brush up on some music theory, went to a music shop and they gave him a booklet which was 20 pages long. He never realized that music theory could be so easy! He said he understood a lot of what was written inside it, but never knew it properly.

There were also questions about his seven string guitar. He said he loves the seven-string guitar but it’s very hard to get pickups made for them and does not like bringing it out on the road for that reason. He hopes to find a pickup manufacturer in the near future to accommodate his needs.

Let’s see…someone asked about his nails. It turns out that he plays with a thumb pick, and then glues Shopper’s Drug Mart nails onto his hand to help with his playing! He ends up gluing two nails per finger before every gig and he also talked about how it is a little embarrassing to go into a nail salon and request to get nails on three fingers of his right hand but he always says “But it’s because I’m a guitarist!” I thought this was hilarious.

There were a few requests in the audience which I thought was amazing in the fact that he had no problem with playing them and just had to remember what tuning they were in. One kid in the front row asked if he could play Nothing Else Matters by Metallica. Everyone had a great laugh at that and Don said “Well I’m sure I could play it, but I don’t know how it goes.”

Someone also asked him about the gear he has on stage and literally talked for 30 minutes on the subject. At one point I must admit I was getting a little overwhelmed at the details, but at the same time, I enjoyed his enthusiasm! He talked about the pickups in his guitar which split into stereo channels and how the pickups really picked up the wood sound of the guitar. He also talked about his new effects rig which he was still playing with.

He also talked about YouTube and how it’s changing lives in the finger style guitarist community. For example, his friend Andy McKee (whom he has recorded a new album recorded with) ended up on the front page of YouTube one day and it just happened to be the same week that Time Magazine published a front page about YouTube. In the end, his video received 12 MILLION VIEWS and he now is writing music for TV shows and traveling as a touring musician for other bands. Quite incredible! He also talked about how his record company (or marketing? I’m not sure) just slapped some footage up on YouTube of him playing and it wasn’t professionally done or anything but still gets an enormous amounts of hits. We also noticed that he had a video camera set up for the show so no doubt he probably takes a look at anything that could go up on the Internet later on.

He also talked about how he created a studio in his home from computers, mics, etcs…essentially the new-age studio and how he didn’t know if it would work out well but in the end, he brought his wife’s new album down to New York to some professional mixer (can’t remember his name but he was big in the business) and Don was really worried about any comments he may have about the recording quality. In the end, the guy finally did ask him where he recorded it and Don sheepishly said “Uh…our house?” and the mixer thought it was amazing and he was surprised that it wasn’t from a regular studio. Just goes to show that I am on my way to making some high quality recordings here guys!

All these anecdotes are definitely out of order…he played this amazing tune called “The First Ride” and I fell in love. I must hunt down the album it is on and learn it.

We got out of there around 4:30 and were amazed at the sheer amazing things we saw and heard. It was great to take part in a guitar clinic like that and I definitely would like to see him in full performance mode someday. Eric ended up picking up a DVD so we’ll have to look at that. Mike and I also picked up an album.

Don Ross…go see him. Be amazed! Some pictures were are included here are the best we have but they aren’t the best in quality considering I had to shut my flash off.

I trust Eric had a great birthday. Too bad there was no beer. 😉

The verdict: Some odd choices of mix tapes brought on the road trip.

Jill, Krista, Mike and I hit the road around 12:30 in some snowy conditions. I enjoyed a few games of Crazy 8 countdown with Jill in the backseat and marveled at my copy of Eddie Vedder’s Into the Wild soundtrack (on vinyl!) that I had delivered to Krista’s place (so I could get two copies).

After random stop-off points such as the Wendy’s truck stop (which had some lackluster beef jerky, but also had chicken nuggets in a vacuum bag!) we arrived at Katie’s place around 6:00PM. Katie is off to Mexico but was gracious enough to lend us her pad while we were in Toronto. After a quick few beers, we hopped on the subway to head out to the Air Canada Center. Krista is from this neighbourhood of Toronto so she knew the lay of the land (for the most part) and we got to the Air Canada Center with ease. We had already missed MuteMath by the time we got there and I think Alanis was just getting started.

Off to the bar we went where some ladies were out for a good time but had a few harsh words for the size of wine they got for the extraordinary price they paid. We decided to go all out (we are on a road trip after all) and get the large beer at the ACC. $13 later a tear came down my eye. Another one would come out of my eye later on when I realize that when I want to buy two, a $20 bill can’t even cover it.

We went into the arena where Alanis was in full force with a track off of Jagged Little Pill. We crushed ourselves into our seats on the floor like the sardines that we are and settled in for the night. Let it be known that the seats on the floor at the Scotiabank Place in Ottawa are quite larger…large enough for my ass not to hang off the sides (and I would like to think that I don’t have that large of an ass – naysayers, meet me at the Pool doors at 3:00). It didn’t help that the woman next to me invaded my $70 seat space. Mike can vouch for me as we switched spots at one point in the night and he was wondering if the girl was getting close to him or not.

Alanis was entertaining in the fact that I have never seen her live. I only have her Jagged Little Pill album also and she ended up playing the hits off of that. She also played some other hits and some tunes from her forthcoming album. All in all, musically it was great, performance wise she’s definitely different than the Jagged Little Pill Alanis (let’s be honest here…it was 15 years ago!). But there she was just walking back and forth on the stage…one side to the other. Our heads just kept following her along. Not much going on there. Coupled with the leather pants and sequin shirt, we had some questions that needed to be answered.

All in all, it was still a decent opener although the crowd all sat down. LAME!

After picking up a few more beer and sneaking Krista into the men’s washroom (you would think with the technology out there, someone would develop a faster toilet for women), Matchbox Twenty hit the stage with their new hit single How Far We’ve Gone. Their LED lighting rig is exactly like the Nine Inch Nails Summer With Teeth tour and they are pretty neat. Two or three songs in, Paul Doucette’s guitar crapped out on them right before a song began and took a few moments to fix which had Rob Thomas lying on the floor from embarrassment at being at a big rock show and not being able to rock.

What can I say? I find Kyle Cook is a little more mellow these days, it’s strange to see the old drummer as a guitarist but the singer and the bassist seem to be the same as always. Excellent show man that Rob Thomas is. They went through all the good hits (Matchbox Twenty has a gazillion of them…they are the modern-age Beatles (hits-wise, not creativity-wise)) and I was surprised to hear a few songs like Hang and Back 2 Good which are some faves of mine. Kyle also got to shine a few times with some great solos.

We were all impressed by the concert put on by Matchbox Twenty and I’m glad we got to see them on a Greatest Hits tour rather than an album oriented tour as I got to see some songs that I never saw before.

Let it be known that Mike let us know that the encore kind of glazed over him as he had been up since 5 in the morning, had not eaten since lunch and was enjoying the beer at the ACC. Krista and I also felt good but at least we remember what the heck happened during the encore!

Considering our need for food in our stomach, we hit the town and went to the first place in the area. We went into The Loose Moose on York Street where I went to the front desk and said “A table for three please” and they said “Seat yourself!”. I didn’t look behind them to realize that the entire place was virtually empty!

After having an excellent pastrami sandwich and a beer, I had the urge to dance and Krista attempted to teach me how to waltz. Clearly I do not have any inherent dancing abilities so it didn’t go too well. We also attempted to continue the waltz on the subway ride home which was quite difficult whenever the subway would throw on the brakes.

We hit home, Mike crashed and Krista and I stayed up for awhile to have another beer before retiring from the excellent night. Two thumbs up for both Alanis and Matchbox Twenty.

Alanis Setlist:
MORATORIUM INTRO
UNINVITED
ALL I REALLY WANT * We showed up in the middle of this song. Too bad we missed out on Uninvited!
8 EASY STEPS
HAND IN MY POCKET
CITIZEN OF THE PLANET
MORATORIUM
EVERYTHING
MY HUMPS
YOU OUGHTA KNOW
YOU LEARN
THANK YOU
IRONIC

Matchbox Twenty Setlist:
To come when our concert recording shows up! They were selling USB wristbands after the show for $35 with a concert recording on them. We ended up ordering it from the website so we should see it in a few weeks.

Friday had me go to class again…I don’t know if I will either enjoy a Friday afternoon class (where it has me leave work early) or come to loathe the Friday afternoon class (because it’s essentially work on a Friday where your brain is mush, PLUS I foresee group work happening afterwards). The one good thing I have going is my Professor seems amazing for a Quantitative Methods course.

After class, I picked up the car and headed back over to Trish’s where Mike and gallantly hooked up her VCR and Super Nintendo and then sat back and enjoyed some drinks and pizza before heading out to see Econoline Crush at Zaphod’s. We also watched some King of Queens and Trish gave me my Christmas gift – the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks! I feel well armed for any impending zombie attacks on us. Did you know that the smartest thing you can do is to get onto the second level of your house and destroy the stairs as zombies cannot climb? It’s true…it’s in the book.

The last time I saw Econoline Crush in concert was in 2001 while they were supporting their Brand New History album. Econoline Crush are a Canadian industrial band although I think we can define them as a rock band nowadays as they seem to have swayed away from the industrial tinges that layered The Devil You Know and Brand New History. They had broken up and eventually had Trevor Hurst recording with Ross Childress (of amazing guitar player from Collective Soul fame) and releasing an EP called Hurst. We saw Hurst open up for Theory of a Deadman a few years back and they were decent.

Anyhow, fast-forward to now and Trevor Hurst got the blessing from the other band members to continue on with the Econoline Crush band name but with all new members. This isn’t as shocking as you think as it turns out that a lot of the members have severe disabilities that prevent them from even playing instruments any longer! Dang!

We arrived at Zaphod’s around 8PM which was silly on my part because when I saw that the show started at 8PM, I thought that this really meant that the band was on at 8PM. In the end, they showed up on stage aroun 10PM so we had a few beers and had numerous debates stemming from Chuck Klosterman’s Top 23 Questions He Asks a Person to Determine if He Can Really Love them. I had stumbled upon this chapter in his Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs book and immediately loved it. Here’s an example question (paraphrased and no copyright obtained but I hope that this will be fine if Mr. Klosterman ever stumbles upon my little website and realizes that I’m listing a question from his book in order to entice readers to buy your book, which is amazing.):

“Someone invents the ‘dream’ VCR which allows you to record all the dreams you have during the night. However, there is a catch. The inventor will only allow you to see the tape of your dreams if you watch it along with your closest friends and family at the same time. Would you still do this?”

This brought forth some great debate which descended into madness when someone brought up the topic of being either deaf or blind and then Mike went on a rant about how deaf people shouldn’t be allowed to drive whereas I pondered why hearing has anything to do with it considering car stereos can be cranked to a volume where you couldn’t possibly hear a nuclear explosion occuring right outside your door. Unfortunatley for Vero and Trish, we were into this heated debate to the point where we weren’t exactly democratic in allowing anyone else to get into the debate!

Econoline Crush took the stage and took our hearts away. The band was back, albeit with all new members. They railed through a lot of their new album which sounded great upon first listen (this night was their CD release party so I had yet to listen to it) and a lot of their older hits. Zaphod’s is a great little club to see a band and you could see that the band were having a great time. I don’t really have much else to say other than I would probably go see them again if they came to town.

The rest of the night had us dancing a little while (where some girls came and danced with Mike and one of them may have brused her hand up against him. Mike comments “Was this really happening? How did this occur? This was awesome!”) and we left early on as a) We had definitely had our share of alcohol and b) We had forgotten that Vero had to work in the morning.

All in all, a grand night and I’m glad to see Econoline Crush back in the saddle. I’ll review their album after a few listens.

(photo taken by the Dentyne Gum crew who snapped our photo and then gave us a card indicating where we can download it from. Cool!)

So after we packed the car up, we headed for Montreal. Let it be noted that in the future, if I arrange to pick up Vero from home, and then double back to pick up Carrie at the Schwarma Palace on Rideau Street, I should use my head beforehand and realize that Vero’s office of work (which she just walked 20 minutes from) is RIGHT NEXT TO THE SCHWARMA PALACE!!! Vero was not impressed that he had to bust her ass all the way home for me to drive back to her office.

After munching on an excellent schwarma, we hit the road, stopped to grab some beer (hey did you know Rickard’s has a wheat beer called Rickard’s White? It’s delish.) and kept moving.

Lucky for me, I thought about checking out craigslist.com to find some tickets to the Osheaga Festival instead of paying the $95 from the ticket booth. Sure enough, I found a guy selling his tickets at $50 a pop. BONUS!

We couldn’t get in touch with him on the phone so I headed to his pad. I knocked, I rang the doorbell, I did that again and no answer. Dang it, he must have sold the tickets on me! However, my patience won out and the guy runs out of the washroom with a towel wrapped around him.

Now, I’m not gay, but this guy definitely had a physique I was jealous of. I was laughing to myself as I knew Carrie and Vero were missing out by sitting down the street in the car. I was contemplating going to get them while he changed into some clothes but whatever. They’ve all seen hot men wrapped in towels before (aka Philipp and I).

After picking up the tickets, we headed to Philipp’s, hit the ground running with a few beer, contemplated how we could climb up to his rooftop patio considering it was under construction and the entrance was blocked, and then decided to head out into the town.

I love Montreal. It has a different vibe at night than Ottawa. We were walking down the street and I heard some excellent stand-up bass and we decided to walk over and enter a jazz club. This place was hopping with an excellent jazz band. Unfortunately for us, it was closing time and they only stayed for another song. After dancing to some oldies, we continued onto another bar called Miami (which supposedly is usually good to go to) but at that hour, there was no one so we headed out to some night club and danced the night away. Personal highlight from that evening was the guy who started dancing with us and then proceeds to throw water into his own face…along with the ice! After some good laughs, we headed home and crashed.

Man, it was a hot night in Montreal. I didn’t get too much sleep which I had to counteract somehow for the next day. It’s funny how the weather can change on a dime during September as the next night was cold.

On Saturday we got in touch with Matt and Karilee who were coming to the festival and we made plans to meet up around 5PM. After going to the Fameux Restaurant for some smoked meat sandwiches, we headed out down St. Denis to check out some vinyl record stores. Vero picked up some excellent choices, including a suggested Top Gun soundtrack!

We then headed out to H&M which was on the other side of town. After walking for awhile, we ended up in the mall, grabbed some much needed juice to replenish our strength and went into H&M. I was dismayed at first when I realized we came out all that way for nothing as it was a womens/children’s clothing only shop! However, the cashier heard our dismay and informed us the mens shop was up one level. Vero and I headed out there in search of the brown corduroy jacket that I passed up in New York City. Unfortunately for me, anything associated with clothing and New York City has a curse on it and sure enough, they did not have a size that fit me. The one I tried on was snug but I did the ‘bend over and tie your shoe’ test and it wasn’t happening.

Upset, we left and headed back home as it was getting late and I realized that I had forgotten the tickets in my car so there was no way we would make the 5PM deadline. Vero ended up heading ahead without me to meet up with Karilee, Ann and Matt.

We reached the festival grounds (which is on Parc Jean-Drapeau Island) which was home to Expo ’67. Hey, that’s forty years ago! Crazy. I saw the biosphere which was cool. The festival grounds had a slew of vendors and very cool artwork strewn about. The two main stages were set up right next to another so they didn’t have any lag time between bands. I liked this setup more than the Bluesfest setup which had a stage on the opposite end of the field. This way, you could technically plant yourself between the two stages and have a great view of both.

We watched Stars play (Montreal band) who were alright. They picked up near the end. We then were watching Feist but decided to tour the grounds for some excitement and sat down for awhile. I was anxious to buy a Pumpkins t-shirt but we don’t live in a world of cheap tour shirts any longer and they were $45. I scoffed at the price and realized it wasn’t for me.

After Feist, we headed to the Vice Magazine corn roast which didn’t have any corn at all! I believe that it was held in the afternoon and this was the reason for no corn upon our arrival around 7PM but the others didn’t seem to follow my line of thinking. We then stood in line forever for a steak sandwich and then headed back to find a good spot to watch the Pumpkins. We could see Damien Rice’s set from where we were standing which I enjoyed instead of just hanging out for an hour without anything to do. Unfortunately, we misjudged the weather and a cold snap hit us and Vero was super cold. I think she ended up with a cold the next day. 🙁

The Pumpkins rocked and then we left and headed back home where Philipp and I watched a hilarious Ali G video (must have been a compilation of his British show) while Carrie and Vero slept. The next day we toured around the area to get some poutine (22 different varieties! BEAUTY!) and checked out a few record shops. I found this great one around the block from Philipp’s place although they didn’t have any Pumpkins vinyl that I was in search for.

In the end, another great weekend was had in Montreal. I love that place. Thanks to Philipp and Jean for the great company.

(photo taken from the Montreal Gazette)

The Pumpkins were on fire tonight. I think I would put this concert at #2 in the three concerts that I’ve seen (#1 being held by the Mellon Collie tour of ’96).

They had an amazing setlist which consisted of a lot of Zeitgeist material as well as some oldies/goodies. My favourite part about the Pumpkins is when they go into their random jam sessions or revamp some of their songs. Bullet With Butterfly Wings used to be like this back in the Adore/Machina touring days but has since made it back to its original incarnation. Heavy Metal Machine (Machina) was victim to the revamping and I thought it was a beautiful way to lose of my hearing. I’m kidding..actually, the concert wasn’t that loud at all now that I think about it. No ringing of the ears afterwards. This may have to do with the fact that it’s an outdoor festival.

The new light show is pretty swell also although Vero complained that it was in her eyes most of the time so she had a hard time seeing the stage and the people up there. I had no such problem although there were two tall guys in my line of vision for the concert.

While I would have liked to hear Starz and Zero (which made it onto the setlist of the next night’s concert in Toronto), I was impressed with the choice of songs (catering to both the old and new fans) and the sheer power in the music that night. Billy was in a great mood that night…even laughing during a portion of United States. Speaking about United States, the PA system conked out for 10 seconds right when it builds up to the apex of eardrum splitting rock riffs…unfortunate, but at least it only lasted 10 seconds.

Setlist:
United States (with Star Spangled Banner AND O Canada being played!)
Bullet with Butterfly Wings
That’s the Way (My Love Is) – New single…it’ll be a hit for the pseudo-fans
Neverlost
Hummer
Stand Inside Your Love
Tonight Tonight
Tarantula – this track was awesome. I love everything about this tune. It is visceral. Vero said it was the highlight of her night.
Glass and The Ghost Children – A revamped tune (which I thought was Gossamer at first). I like this version better than the original.
By Starlight -> To Sheila (with full band as opposed to acoustic only)
1979 (solo acoustic)
Superchrist – A new song which probably stemmed from jam sessions to Gossamer. Very cool.
Doomsday Clock
Heavy Metal Machine (!!!)
Encore: Today

Considering Bluesfest ended and we needed some more rock, it was a good thing that we picked up tickets to see John Fogerty when he came into town!

From Wikipedia:
John Cameron Fogerty (born May 28, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist, best known for his time with the swamp rock or roots rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival.

That’s right, we went to see the main man from CCR! I was stoked. Out of all the old greats out there – Zeppelin, Floyd, the Stones, I would have to say that CCR is my fave.

Mike’s parents came down for the event and we headed out to the Scotiabank Place after a good BBQ. When we got into the Place, we showed his parents to their section 106 (as they had picked up tickets at a different time than we did) and Mike and I headed down to the floor.

We had Row 5 seats and in my mind I thought “Hey, that’s pretty close.” but it wasn’t until Mike kept walking, and walking and WALKING up to the stage that my mind imploded with the sheer distance to the stage. When we got down there the Jim Cuddy Band was in full force getting into a little Five Days in May with a wicked violin solo. Back to Row 5 talk here, Row 5 was so close. I could take 3 giant steps and be at the stage. I was in awe. Mike was in awe. We have never been this close. Jim Cuddy’s sweat was hitting me.

We only got to see 20 minutes of Jim Cuddy before he left the stage. I recommend his solo work as well as the Blue Rodeo stuff.

We then headed to get another beer and found out that in Section 106, there were two other groups from Kapuskasing that both took a pilot’s course with Mike’s dad! Talk about a small world! This reminds me of the time we went to see Pearl Jam and there were three separate groups from Kapuskasing in the same section. We are talking about an arena of 15,000 people!

I was concerned with the fact that ONCE AGAIN, Mike and I would be the only people standing up in the crowd, but those fears were laid to rest when we sat next to some guys who declared they would stand up for the entire show. PLUS, they rushed the stage when Fogerty got up there. Security was so relaxed at this concert. There were so many people who rushed the stage. THIS is what a rock concert is about!

John Fogerty and band came to the stage in what must be his official tour outfit – a plaid shirt and a red handkerchief (they were also selling this outfit for $60 at the merchandise booth). He ripped right into Travelin’ Band and I knew it was going to be the most amazing night ever. The setlist was enormous but that’s what you get from a guy who can write the catchiest tune in under 2 minutes.

The hits didn’t stop coming. Here’s the setlist:

Setlist:
Travelin’ Band
Green River
Who’ll Stop The Rain
It Came Out Of The Sky
Born On The Bayou
Lookin’ Out My Backdoor
Lodi
I Will Walk With You
Ramble Tamble
Midnight Special
Bootleg
I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Have You Ever Seen The Rain
Don’t You Wish It Was True
Keep On Chooglin’
Down On The Corner (with Shane & Tyler Fogerty)
Rock And Roll Girls
Centerfield
Good Golly Miss Molly
Old Man Down The Road
Up Around The Bend
Fortunate Son
Bad Moon Rising
Proud Mary
Blue Suede Shoes
Long Tall Sally

The night became a blur filled with rocking tunes and beer. Mike and I were in awe of the performance the entire night. For a sixty-one year old, this guy has more energy than you and I combined. I would definitely have to say that this was THE concert to see in the past year in Ottawa.

Highlights:
– Midnight Special. Man, I dig that tune.
– I think he came out for a second encore that usually doesn’t happen (as seen from other setlists) and he played some Blue Suede Shoes and Long Tall Sally. Sweet!
– Considering the distance from the stage, I got some pretty good performance videos. I was always pre-emptively hitting the start button in fear that I would miss the beginning of Fortunate Son (only the best CCR tune ever, natch). I ended up getting that plus a few others.
– Either his kids or his grandkids were on the stage with him during Down on the Corner. It was funny watching them play guitar as they did not seem phased at all playing in front of a huge crowd. In fact, they looked bored. I suppose that’s what happens if you’ve seen your Dad/Grandpa play all the time.
– I like how I was going up to the stage to get a picture but some guy thought I wanted a picture with him instead. He was a cool guy so I graced him with my presence (although he was probably thinking the same thing)

Sigh…that will probably go down in history as one of the better concerts I’ve seen. I wish everyone could have been there. If you have a chance to see John Fogerty live, do it now.

****

That night when we got home, we had a couple pieces of pie and I swear that made me hallucinate during the night. I couldn’t fall asleep for the longest time and when I awoke at one point I had this hallucination that I wasn’t in my own bedroom! I thought I was in some craft of sorts with some portholes and I felt my wall and it felt like steel. I closed my eyes for a few moments and when I opened them I still saw the portholes but then I realized that they were just my windows and I was sleeping on a different angle on my bed. So instead of my body laying top to bottom, I was laying side to side which must have messed up my brain. Whew! No one kidnapped me after the concert!