10 posts tagged “concerts”

2274638597_ee49e6275e.jpg

Well then. That was a weekend to remember! Rebecca came up to visit again, with all the usual merriment and chaos.

Because everybody at work has been on my case about not having been there, we made the trek down to the mighty Salad King for yummy Thai goodness. Strikingly, there are only two salads on the menu; I have no idea why they call it that. However, the food is excellent (about a billion different Thai curries and stirfries), and the almost cafeteria-like setup (gigantic stainless-steel communal tables, shared benches, etc.) pretty much force you to make new friends. I can also report that Thai beer tastes...pretty much exactly like North American lager. However, it is Approved by the King, which surely means lots.

After that, we moseyed on down to Richmond and John (having to elbow our way through a crowd out front of Muchmusic, as apparently the cast of Twilight was in the building, and Twihards were blocking both Queen and John Streets) to climb the longest escalator I've ever seen (holy shit, four stories!) and see Quantum of Solace. I really don't understand all the critical hatin' on the movie; it's not "great cinema," and it wasn't quite as innovative and awesome as Casino Royale before it, but it was still a solid, entertaining action film. The new Bond girls were winners, the fight scenes were great, and even some of the oft-decried Mark Forster arty touches (oil is the new gold!) were pretty spiffy. I was satisfied, anyway.

For Sunday, I threw Rebecca at Jess for the day so I could go to work, and what a crazy shift that was. It was the perfect storm: the Santa Claus parade, the buildup towards Christmas, and a huge sale. The crowds were massive, and the lineup at my till never really ended. Thankfully, I was in such contagiously good spirits that not even the grumpiest of customers really got to me or got mad at me. In fact, the day would have gone off without a hitch had one of the head cashiers not made a counting mistake earlier in the day that made it look like I was hundreds of dollars off on my final totals. Cue a minor panic attack, until we dug the truth out of the back of the safe. 

To conclude the awesome weekend (actually, this was the raison d'être for the weekend), Rebecca and I reunited at Lee's Palace (with a hilarious cameo appearance from Jess!) to see a concert at Lee's Palace. The opener was painfully, painfully bad; his voice was passable, but his songs were hopelessly cheesy and bland. After that, though, came a band I got into in the first year of my undergrad and still love: Ours. They aren't so much a band as a vehicle for the three-and-a-half-octave post-Buckley insanity of Jimmy Gnecco's voice, but damned if it doesn't all come together brilliantly live. Such a huge voice coming from a man who is probably less than 120 pounds (starvation? Heroin? Theories abound) just doesn't seem possible, and his chosen backing band is both tight and hilariously versatile (trumpet and bass at the same time? Why not?). I might've cowered in fear during the outro of "Murder," and all the songs from the first album (i.e. the ones the audience might've actually known) brought the house down. Why the hell is that band not more famous?

In fact, Ours was opening for somebody more famous: Lukas Rossi, that eyelinered dink from reality TV. Thus, I did something I've never done before: walked out on a show. It only took two songs (and the predations of a disturbing amount of local cougars trying to get closer to the stage) before Rebecca and I fled in terror. At least I got my money's worth from Ours.  

3alexsolca308.jpg

Sunday: a day of rock.

Rebecca came up to visit yesterday, and it was an epic day indeed. We started off with a brief tour of the U of T campus, then wandered up to the Manulife Centre (my workplace on my day off! Ack!) to go see "Choke." The movie plays far looser with the source material than "Fight Club" did, but is still faithful, not to mention utterly hilarious. Never before have colonial reenactment, mental hospitals, Christ's-children conspiracy theories, and a wayward anal bead come together so well. The constant Palahniuk educational asides were sorely missed, but probably would have ruined the comedic tone anyway.

Of course, the real reason for the visit was a concert down at the Mod Club. 3, who I fell in love with when I saw them open for Porcupine Tree last year, were back in town, this time as headliners.

The Mod Club is basically the same as every midsized bar-that-hosts-concerts ever; I was really reminded of Guelph's Denim in its pre-redneckification days. The crowd was pitifully thin; this must have been disappointing for 3, but it meant that Rebecca and I got to waltz right up to the edge of the stage, with only one row of "with-the-band" types in front of us.

For once, I had actually heard of the opening band; I bought an Alpha Galates album after seeing some really enticing reviews, so it was a happy coincidence that 3 picked them to open. They're rather unusual as metal bands go, in that all five members sing, the drummer takes care of most of the vocals, and both the bassist and the keyboardist are female (random aside: holy crap, is their keyboardist ever gorgeous). They played a spectacular set, every bit as brutal live as they are on the CD, but bad sound levels marred the experience. I don't know if it was just bad mixing or the rhythm guitarist's ego, but whenever he cranked the distortion (on a Danelectro baritone, no less! What a weird guitar for that kind of music), good luck hearing anybody else. When you could actually hear the vocals, though, it was pitch-perfect five-part harmony. Very impressive.

The next band, The Tub Ring, was certainly interesting. They were kind of a poor man's Mr. Bungle: at least three genre shifts a song, light-speed prog-punk riffs, and an insanely versatile vocalist with one hell of a stage presence. Even if the music wasn't quite my thing, they were sure a hell of a lot of fun to watch. Their bassist played like a madman, and when he accidentally ripped the strap pin out of his bass (!), he finished the set holding the end of the strap in his mouth. The keyboardist was even crazier, executing all kinds of gymnastic maneuvers while playing, and continuing unfazed after he somehow managed to slice his finger open (he spent most of the third song playing one-handed and watching confusedly as blood trickled down his arm). The guitarist...actually mostly stood in one place, and bore an uncanny resemblance to our good man Nathan.

3, of course, blew my mind again. How Joey Eppard manages to play such intricate guitar riffs, while singing like that, without a goddamn pick, will forever blow my mind. Everyone else in the band was in spectacular form, too. The drummers did their traditional drum duet, this time with even more cymbal-biting and a hypnotic sequence that had two of them fighting over use of a cymbal. Rebecca claims that the other guitarist's solos were inaudible, but I could hear the glorious shredding crystal-clear; I kind of wonder if the sound at the Mod Club is so very directional that more can be heard at 71 inches above the ground than at 64". Best of all, we got some really left-field songs in the setlist: a funky oldie from their let's-be-a-heavier-Jamiroquai days, and a new song still in the process of being written (kind of a fluffy ballad, but these things happen). In the end, I just feel sorry for Joey's acoustic guitar; he once again managed to break most of his strings during the outro of "Amaze Disgrace."

zombie-1.jpg

So apparently the Pope took it upon himself to move St. Patrick's Day this year, as you apparently can't have a saintly feast day during the week before Easter. It happened in 1940 and won't happen again until 2060, but hey. Good for the pope! It's nice to see a bit of ex cathedra rulemongering that isn't killing the poor or oppressing anybody. I think he just wants to make sure he can knock back a pint of scary-ass black beer without feeling guilty.

Last night was the last night for this year's Curtain Call musical at Guelph, and I figured that I had to see at least one of those things before I graduated. This year's play was Zombie Prom. What a gloriously weird musical. Imagine Grease with John Travolta dying a horrible death and coming back as a singing, dancing zombie. My good friend Nathan is officially my hero for bringing the house down with his portrayal of a benevolent-but-sleazy news baron, and everyone else was spot-on too. Since it was the final performance, there were more than a few risqué pranks, but that only added to it. I definitely need to see more musicals.

Finally, here's my latest musical "oh, neat!": YOAV. He's like some kind of strange bastard child of Justin Timberlake and Kaki King; he plays really nifty, intricate dance-pop using only an acoustic guitar and some kind of loop station. Actually, I don't think I've ever had such a good week for CD reviews in the Ontarion. I took three and had glowing reviews for all of them.

Mr. Good has done it again. What a great show.

I saw Matt Good at River Run Centre last night. River Run Centre is definitely a classier place than I'm used to for rock shows, but that's okay! They have comfy seats and a lovely fog machine.

The open act was Dala, two girls with acoustic guitars who were way the hell more country-folk than anything I'd normally listen to, but were so damn talented that I didn't care. I haven't heard such tight harmony in a long time, and the between-song banter was bloody hilarious. Their set closer was randomly awesome, too: a smouldering a capella rendition of "Hit the Road, Jack."

Mr. Good himself was looking tired but dapper tonight, clad in a suit jacket and a striped shirt. He covered all the bases: most of the new album ("Champions of Nothing" is amazing live), the acoustic classics ("Avalanche" for the second time in my life! Huzzah!), and a few unlikely old tunes reworked ("Load Me Up" was better than I expected). Somehow, despite everything working against him (bronchitis, heavy doses of medication, and at least three glasses of wine consumed over the course of the night), he was at the top of his game. "Suburbia" and "The Fine Art of Falling Apart" damn near made me cry, for various reasons. He was in quite the comical mood, too. Between ranting about Canadian Tire (the guy in their commercials should watch his back, apparently), talking baseball, and treating us to excerpts from his imaginary "next album" about the inter-character romantic tension in Lord of the Rings, the stand-up was sometimes just as good as the music.

Approximate Setlist

Girl Wedged Under the Front of a Firebird
Champions of Nothing
Avalanche
Born Losers
I’m A Window
99% of Us is Failure
Suburbia
Silent Army in the Trees
Black Helicopter
Alert Status Red
She's In It For The Money
Load Me Up
Strange Days
Tripoli
Apparitions

Advertising on Police Cars
Hopeless
Pledge of Allegiance
The Fine Art of Falling Apart

There was no way on Earth that this concert could have been bad, but Steve Wilson and Porcupine Tree exceeded all expectations.

The venue for the night was the Phoenix, which, from the outside, looks like an awning stuck on the side of a mental ward (I'm not even kidding. It is adjoined to the St. Michael's Teaching Hospital's Mental Health Centre on Sherbourne). Inside, though, it's actually a pretty neat little venue. There might have been 1000 people in there, and it was cozy, but not nearly as crowded as, say, the last time I saw Muse. The crowd was mostly a bunch of shaggy music nerds and metalheads, but I'd rather have that than the packs of moshing teenagers.

Even the opening band was a pleasant surprise! They were "3," a five-piece from Woodstock, NY. I have no idea how the hell to describe these guys. They have two drummers (one of whom looks suspiciously like he was borrowed from the Blue Man Group). Their singer has about three octaves of range and plays flamenco riffs on a Les Paul. Their lead guitarist plays a Bich 10-string, wears a housecoat on stage, shreds like a motherfucker, and has a giant fan on his pedalboard so his hair blows in the wind. Need I say more? They were friggin' insane. Heavy, melodic, and very talented. They played for over an hour, which would have infuriated me from a lesser opening band (e.g. anybody I've ever seen before Dream Theater), but I was spellbound. All the better that they're in talks with Dream Theater and Opeth to open for their joint summer tour. Oh, and Rebecca says their bassist is cute.

But that's not even what we were there for! 3's setdown was one of the fastest disassemblies I've seen at a concert, and then Porcupine Tree took the stage. Steven Wilson is a man possessed, and a hell of a nice guy. In between bouts of insane musical talent, he bantered with the audience, shared stories about hanging out with ("what's the word for somebody from this town? Torontite? Torontonian?") Alex Lifeson, and made fun of the frowny hipster guy in the front row ("awwwww, look at you smiling like that!"). And the music! Good heavens. They sound even better live than on CD, and I couldn't have asked for a much better setlist. Their older, more psychedelic stuff was downright hypnotic, and the heavier stuff was brutal and haunting. "Anaesthetize" was a kick in the face, and I was definitely one of the idiots singing along to "Open Car" and "Halo." I didn't even recognize a few of the songs, which were apparently B-sides from the last album, but even those were amazing (seriously, it takes giant balls to start your show with a song nobody in the room knows. Then again, it takes more balls to play a place like that barefoot).

When the band's bus is parked on the street right outside the venue, is it possible to resist waiting to say hi? We certainly couldn't. Neither Rebecca nor I brought anything to get signed, but Rebecca decided that the book in her purse (a cheapo mass-market printing of Measure for Measure) was the best we could do in that regard.  Of course, she was too starstruck to go get it signed herself (probably understandable considering that it was her first "celebrity encounter," but I'll still never let her live it down), so it was up to me to elbow my way into the crowd of fans at the bus door, make a wisecrack along the lines of "not having any of your CDs on hand, I bring you one of your country's lesser art forms," laugh as he replied with "let me tell you, I wish I could take credit for that one," and give the book back to the silly, swooning girl. The dude is tiny! Using KJ for comparison (just a little bit taller, and the same wiry build, though he lacks the sexy curves), I bet I've got about fifty pounds on him. That can't be healthy. Nice guy, though, and apparently comfortable enough in his emaciation that Rebecca has a gigantic crush on him (which I'll never, ever let her live down). If they find my broken body in the Speed River this week, the probable cause is one joke too many about Rebecca and Steven, sittin' in a tree.

3 Setlist

The Word is Born of Flame
The End is Begun
Alien Angel
Battle Cry
My Divided Falling
All That Remains
These Iron Bones
The Last Day
Bramfatura
Drum Duet/Jam
Amaze Disgrace

Porcupine Tree Setlist

What Happens Now?
Fear of a Blank Planet (complete with creepy-ass music video)
Sound of Muzak
Lazarus (weirdest-looking acoustic guitar I've seen in a while)
Cheating the Polygraph
Anaesthetize (with gratuitous strobelight action)
Open Car (never has there been louder crowd-singing)
Dark Matter
Blackest Eyes
Mellotron Scratch
A Smart Kid
Way Out of Here
Sleep Together (very angry and uptempo, with creepy video)
----------------
Even Less
Halo (could barely hear the bass, didn't care. Made my night)

• I've almost started writing my thesis. By this I mean that there's a solid working outline, and I've taken a nice chunk out of the mile-thick reading list. I might just do this thing after all.
• Course selection is starting soon. It figures that I had to fight and fight to find four interesting courses to take this semester, but the winter (my grand finale) offers no less than seven things I'd like to take.
  
• KJ and I tried playing The Sims 2 when I visited her in Waterloo this week. She fussed over the decoration of the house. I spent most of my time trying to get our Sims to have sex. This pretty much sums up our relationship.
  
• This is pretty much the best concert month ever. As if Porcupine Tree (rides be damned. We'll sleep in a church if we have to) and Matt Good weren't enough, 5th Projekt are playing a free show at the Albion (four blocks from my house!) on the 9th. Who are they, you ask? I grabbed their CD from the reviewers' slush pile at the Ontarion last year, and it's one of two times in history that I've given a full five stars. I cannot miss this.
  
• Oddly enough, I think I'm more consumed by the University Bubble now than when I lived in res. It's Oktoberfest? Thanksgiving is tomorrow? There's an election on Wednesday? I know all these things, but it doesn't seem quite real.
  

Ah, the Molson Amphitheatre. Concrete, fibreglass, and sweet blue sky. The only thing more absurd than the $13-dollar beer at the concession stand is that about a third of the concert-goers at this Saturday's Dream Theater show were willing to pay that price. What an amazing show, though. Those guys never tire.

Opening Band #1: Into Eternity

Canada's own Into Eternity was probably a bit of an odd choice to open for Dream Theater. They take the same athletic approach to music, but holy fuck, were they ever loud and heavy. No matter how fast their guitarists were, or how apparently octopus-like the drummer was, I don't think that DT fans were looking forward to seeing a death metal band. Combine their relentless lack of texture with comatose audio mixing (you could hardly distinguish anything beyond the vocals and the drums) and their relatively-short set felt like an act of mercy. Still, they were entertaining as hell to watch. The singer was a monitor-jumping, moonwalking machine (not to mention a gifted Cookie Monster impersonator), and I figure a guy can't go through life without witnessing at least one unironic heavy-metal hair twirl.

Opening Band #2: Redemption

Dream Theater and Fates Warning have been friends for ages, so it makes sense that a FW side project would get invited on a DT tour. Unfortunately, Ray Alder hasn't been a good singer since the late 80's, and the soundboard guy was still AWOL.  I don't want to be too hard on these guys, though, because they sounded as if they could have been really interesting if only the keyboard and bass were audible over preposterous double-kick drumming and Alder braying like a particularly angst-ridden donkey. The bassist in particular did loads of sweet-looking two-handed tapping riffs, but I couldn't discern a single note of it over the other racket.

Main Event: Dream Theater

One of the first things we noticed about the stage setup was a traffic light suspended over the main microphone stand. It started shining bright red while the roadies hauled Redemption's gear off-stage, and the crowd promptly went apeshit when it switched to the amber signal. Curtains fell, the light went green, and the band coalesced out of thin air to bash out a raunchy ripoff of Also sprach Zarathustra by way of introduction. The nine songs that followed added up to two hours of awesomeness and hilarity.

Constant Motion: This one sounds pretty much exactly like it does on the album, but it was probably best to start off with something straightforward and loud. Portnoy has gotten a hell of a lot better at backing vocals lately, too.

Never Enough: After avoiding it at both of their Octavarium-era Toronto stops, DT finally unloaded their most cynical anthem last night. I was never a fan of this one, but it works a hell of a lot better at a brisk live tempo. It also finally proved, much to my chagrin, that the crazy-ass sweep-picking unison bit in the bridge isn't played with any sort of trickery beyond exceedingly good technique. Young guitarists around the world, abandon all hope.

Blind Faith: This was around the point where I started singing along like an idiot, and a bunch of people a few rows over started holding up lighters. The piano solo in the middle went twice as long as normal, and was gorgeous.

Surrounded: Whatever possessed them to remix this song, I'll never know, but most the changes were actually quite welcome. Swapping the grating eighties synths for warmer tones and adding a beautiful introductory guitar solo makes perfect sense, but why on earth would they swap out the beautiful and unique delay-soaked solo from the original and just shred instead? Ah, well. It's still their best slow song, and a surprise treat.

The Jordan Rudess Show: Jordan has added enough gear to his rig that it now looks like some sort of insane laboratory. Between the Continuum pad, the lap-steel, the note reader, and the gigantic foam ant, he's running out of room on the keyboard stand. There was a bizarre, unidentifiable black fin on the side of the keyboard, though, and its use didn't become apparent until he tore it off mid-solo and slung it over his shoulder: A goddamn Keytar. The ultimate in 80's cheese, and he's parading around with it like Angus Young on a bender. It should have been the corniest thing in the history of metal, but the combination of virtuosity and hilarious shock value made it all worthwhile.

Dark Eternal Night: I hated this song when I first heard it on the CD, especially the trite fantasy-themed bellows that serve as lyrics. Live, though, there are a few thousand fans shouting along, and the effect is just scary enough that it works brilliantly. Also, the instrumental section in the middle is one of those things that has to be seen to be believed. As an animated cherry on the sundae, the screens played a sequel to the Octavarium cartoon. Flame-shooting guitars and drumkit cars forever.

Lines in the Sand: The tendency is to fear anything off of the Falling Into Infinity album, but this was always one of the best tracks on that worst of DT albums, and freedom from the wicked clutches of Desmond Child has given them even more opportunity to have some fun with it (both in the musical and the pranking sense; there was a cute moment where James snuck over and tweaked Petrucci's beard).

Scarred: This was just about the last thing I was expecting them to play, but what a perfect choice, especially now that James has his full vocal power back. John does a pretty mean blues solo when he wants to, too. I think this was when Mike threw a drumstick and (does this happen at every show I go to?) it pinged off the lighting rig, coming right back to the stage.

In The Presence of Enemies: Holy shit. It takes a lot of balls to finish a set with a 26-minute song (or to write one in the first place), but this was the highlight of the show. The combination of the insane riffing, huge sing-along sections, and James' very best insane-preacher impression damn near brought the house down. I'm completely ashamed to say that I didn't like this song the first time I heard it.

Shmedley Wilcox: DT has amassed a catalogue of Rush-sized proportions, and it looks like they're stealing Rush's coping mechanism: the medley. A few minutes each of some of their most popular overlong songs (Trial of Tears, Finally Free, Learning to Live, In the Name of God, Octavarium) got mashed together surprisingly gracefully, even with the guitar switches. As compromises go, this was a damn good one. It's probably the closest I'll ever get to seeing "In The Name of God" live, and thus I am sated.

The rest of the weekend's summary will have to wait for another day, but to sate the eager masses, here's a rundown of the Top Ten Cool Things (in chronological rather than qualitative order) about the Rebecca & Brad Toronto Expedition:

1. Sarah's awesome goodbye party at the Longhouse and Albion! We all miss you already!
   
2. Having the lovely Alina as a surprise travel companion and making sure she didn't get lost in Union Station!
3. Chinatown Bubble Tea!
   
4. Jaywalking Lakeshore at rush hour!
5. Dream Theater! (duh)
6. Crashing at Jess' zombie-surrounded-yet-incredibly-stylish Parkdale apartment!
7. Completing the Great-Restaurant Trifecta: sexy breakfast by Roncesvalles and superb sushi on Queen West!
8. Convincing Rebecca that the big city ain't so bad after all!
   
9. Storming a Chapters and finding awesome books!
10. Being approached by my ex's former housemate's former squadronmate (?!) at the Bay Street Terminal!

So yes. I just saw Muse, and it was awesome. Concerts being such overwhelming and scattershot things, and me being so very drained, we're doing this one bullet-point style.

• The venue: Arrow Hall, a block north of Pearson Airport. The hall itself looks like a dressed-up aircraft hanger, all naked beams and garage doors. Thankfully, the acoustics were gorgeous, and KJ and I managed to fight our way up to about six bodies away from the stage.
• The opening band was Cold War Kids, a bluesy Christian indie-rock act out of California. What a Christian band was doing opening for Muse, I'll never know (have you listened to "Megalomania?" Really?), but they played well and were far from the worst band I've seen.
• I hate Toronto highschoolers. The crowd was downright violent. Poor KJ almost got knocked over a couple of times when people started moshing, and there was a point where I lapsed into Angry Overprotective Boyfriend Mode and started flinging sweaty sixteen-year-olds left and right. Needless to say, we eventually had a nice bit of space to ourselves.
• I don't think I've ever been to a more visually impressive concert. The setup at last year's show was fancy enough, but they pulled out all the stops this time. Fancy lights on the drum riser, gigantic confetti-filled balloons, hilarious CGI videos in the background, dry ice, a laser-firing chrome guitar...any lesser band would face accusations of trying to overcompensate for a lack of talent. The coolest gadget of all? Matt's clear-topped piano that had pink lights blinking in a pattern tied to whatever he was playing. There needs to be a viola that does this.
• That said, there were certainly enough technical difficulties. Overenthusiastic dancing caused Matt to accidentally unplug his guitar at one point, and the roadies had to come out to do on-the-spot repairs twice. The wah-wah pedal on the piano also broke, leading to the infamously-taciturn Matt's longest sentence of the night: "Dammit, wah-wah's bust. Just a minute." However, had we not had to wait five minutes for them to go scrounge up a spare wah, we wouldn't have heard a hilarious jam on "Entry of the Gladiators."
• It looks like God doesn't want me to hear "Citizen Erased" or "City of Delusion," and KJ didn't get her favourite song ("Bliss") either, but I'm still pleased with the setlist (until I find out that tomorrow's show gets all of the above); there was a nice mix of old and new, and the long string of piano songs took the wind out of the moshers' sails. Besides, getting two encores negates all griping rights.
  

Encore 1
Soldier's Poem
Unintended
Plug-In Baby (with obligatory guitar-behind-head action)

Encore 2
Take A Bow
Stockholm Syndrome (with more tasty bonus riffing)

EDIT: We've got photos, people. Pilfered from MicroCuts: