6 posts tagged “hq”
King of Coxwell no longer, I'm now mostly settled at the my enormous new Bradlands on Greenwood. Only upon returning and getting all of my stuff into the place did I realize how fucking massive it is. I used to be all covetous of Jess' giant northwestern hipster lair, but darned if this place isn't almost as big (albeit underground). Full-sized fridge, 8-foot ceilings, and still under $600; I'm damn good at this real estate thing.
Of course, I've barely spent any time at the new place. After my first sleep there, I was back 'home' to Guelph for a much-deserved vacation. First up was a wonderful New Year's party down in Ayr with the HQ/Longhouse/Toko gang (apparently the latest social epicentre for that crowd is a downtown apartment christened "The Lion's Den," which is possibly the coolest place they've found yet), which was a much-needed dose of festive insanity. I don't think we've ever had such a fine spread of food at one of our shindigs, either: there were samosas, fancy cheeses, mushroom caps, an ungodly amount of shrimp, and even some awesome mojitos.
The next day saw me back in Guelph, making ratatouille with Rebecca before we made the balls-rattlingly frigid hike down to Kate's place for video games (let it be observed: I'm still the king of Mortal Kombat, but not so hot as a robot with guns) and liquor (things I wasn't expecting to enjoy: Coke and Fireball).
Now I'm back in Toronto, having one last stretch of full-time shifts before returning to class on Monday. Things have been stupidly busy at the store, but there have been enough laughs and cameo appearances from friends to sustain me.
Finally: I have a date on Tuesday? She works in insurance and is a brilliant photographer and is gorgeous and just generally has her shit together 1500% more than I do, but apparently she likes me? Fingers crossed, everybody.
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:
- Sarah's awesome goodbye party at the Longhouse and Albion! We all miss you already!
- Having the lovely Alina as a surprise travel companion and making sure she didn't get lost in Union Station!
- Chinatown Bubble Tea!
- Jaywalking Lakeshore at rush hour!
- Dream Theater! (duh)
- Crashing at Jess' zombie-surrounded-yet-incredibly-stylish Parkdale apartment!
- Completing the Great-Restaurant Trifecta: sexy breakfast by Roncesvalles and superb sushi on Queen West!
- Convincing Rebecca that the big city ain't so bad after all!
- Storming a Chapters and finding awesome books!
- Being approached by my ex's former housemate's former squadronmate (?!) at the Bay Street Terminal!
That was quite the pair of gatherings. With Sarah having reached the venerable age of 21 (herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag, Frau Melse!) and Gooch's sister (Goochette? Little Gooch? We never did think up an appropriately condescending and endearing nickname) visiting for the weekend, it was inevitable that we'd wind up with some sort of hilarious hedonism at the Longhouse, and I sure wasn't disappointed. Never before have political debate, ice cream cake, beer, and penis jokes been so perfectly integrated. We might never live the "open-source boobs" joke down, and the Impossibly Bad Wines collection has a new member (a bottle of Sawmill that we dubbed the "Zinfanhell"), but those were some glorious evenings.
Well, this entry was certainly a few days coming. Such is life, though.
Book Expo felt a bit more subdued than the mayhem of past years, but there was still some great stuff to be seen. I met William Gibson (looks unwell these days, but is super-friendly) and Guy Gavriel Kay (nice goatee!), which was the sort of recovering-SF&F-fan splooge that surely had the convention janitors living in fear. Naomi Klein was exactly the sort of benevolent presence I would have expected, and Jean Paré was a very kind old lady. I also got to hang out with Expo fixtures Robert Sawyer and Will Ferguson for a bit (a prequel to Happiness?! Definitely the best find of the show), drank an unwieldly amount of free booze (mimosas and keg beer are somehow the fuel of trade shows), and picked up a bulging backpack of novels, history and cookbooks. Oddest of all, Jean Chrétien was there to plug his upcoming memoirs. Love him or hate him, dude has charisma. He's much easier to understand without a microphone in his face, too. I had no trouble understanding him in either official language (though the monolinguals in the crowd seemed rather miffed that half of his speech was in French. Tough luck, kids). He also gets the best catering. Asparagus wrapped in smoked salmon? Weird, but damn tasty, as were the samosas.
Highlights of the haul:
- Don DeLillo's Falling Man
- Advance copies of Ferguson and Gibson's fall releases
- Martin Neufeld's (the original Hugging Busker) biography (yes, I got a hug)
- A vegan cookbook for KJ
- Klein's Fences and Windows
- Dr. Marcone's (the catshit coffee guy from Guelph) book
- The Heavy Metal Colouring Book (toooo funny)
- Assorted indie novels
Tonight was a fun one too, a wonderful break from all the work I've been doing lately. Our dearest Ailish is Ireland-bound, so we saw her off in a flurry of pizza and hair. It's really best not to ask.
So the barbecue was a smashing success! Even if the barbecue itself was unwilling to give us a half-decent flame, there was still much fun and good food to be had. Alex wins the culinary prize for his sublimely bizarre chocolate cake (balsamic vinegar, coffee, and strawberries? Like, what the fuck, dude? But it was so good), but the comedy highlight of the evening had to be Miruna trying to shatter her goodbye piñata. We sure as hell didn't make it easy for her.
Life has otherwise been pretty quiet. I'm registered for Book Expo this year, I'm training more and more rookies at the bookstore, and I'm continually shocked at how little work my DE course requires. I probably won't be going to Tool, but I'm already ridiculously buzzed about Muse and DT.
Oh, and apparently there's a water pipe leaking in the basement of the main house. Classy.
So, the Longhouse gang ventured north to the theatre tonight to see the new Spiderman movie. It was campy, predictable, and perhaps a bit too musical, but good golly was it ever a lot of fun. The special effects were stunning, and there were definitely some great laughs (Bruce Campbell's cameo in this one is, as always, a class act). Just try not to pay any attention to the occasionally strained plot. I was entertained.
Not everyone in the theatre was quite so merry, though. At one point, there was some kind of domestic dispute in the hallway (I heard a girl scream "don't fucking touch me" somewhere in there). As we exited the theatre, the manager (Mike, once of Chapters fame) was sheepishly handing out free-ticket coupons to everybody, apologizing for "the temperature in the theatre." I hope the girl was okay.
