It’s 9:45 a.m. on Friday, January 22. I’m washing down my Robaxacet with Diet Pepsi, and The Guy (capitalized because I’m pretty sure that’s his legal name) is fixing the burnt-out element on our stove. I have better things to do than write a concert review right now (sleep) (that’s it), but I had to be up to let The Guy in, and this hard kitchen chair is the best thing for my back, so here we are. And I need to get this done, because we’re less than 12 hours away from the next show. And then 4 days from the next. And so on.
Seriously. I normally bury my list of upcoming shows at the bottom of the review, and don’t include it in the final copy that I save for the book I’ll never compile, but look at this. How did this happen?
- Whitehorse w/Andy Shauf and Emily Wells (January 22)
- Headstones (January 26)
- Corb Lund (February 9)
- Elliott Brood w/Nick Faye (February 10)
- Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls w/Mo Kenney & Northcote (March 5)
- Amelia Curran (March 8)
- The Watchmen (March 25)
- Metric w/Death Cab for Cutie (March 28)
- Spirit of the West (March 31)
- I Mother Earth (April 23)
- Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids (April 25)
- Ben Folds & yMusic w/Dotan (May 11)
- Hawksley Workman & The Art of Time Ensemble (May 13)
- City and Colour w/Shakey Graves (June 12)
- Regina Folk Festival (August 5-7)
Those aren’t maybes. Those are all things I have tickets for (except for Grownups, and that’s only because tickets haven’t gone on sale yet). My goodness.
Anyway. Blue Rodeo. Canadian (rock? country?) legends. If you were born in this country or have ever visited it, you likely know their hits. I saw them ages ago at the Folk Festival and they were good, didn’t blow me away or anything. Then I saw them again at the Folk Festival this past year, and they were great. So so great. This would be my first time seeing them at their own show (if that makes sense), and I had high hopes for a repeat of this summer’s experience.
Having said that, my attendance at this show was sort of decided for me. I got the email notification that they were coming, and I thought “hey, Mark really liked Blue Rodeo at the Folk Festival too, I should send him this,” so I did, and he said “Great! Get us tickets and I’ll pay you back.” Now, at this point, I hadn’t actually decided whether or not I was going to go to this show, but I took this as a sign from God that I was meant to be there. Even as an atheist, I can find signs from God in all sorts of things whenever I want to do something anyway. Remember, your work fire drill is just God’s way of saying that it’s time to go try the DQ Blizzard of the Month. Anyway, I can tell God approved because we got really good seats.
With each of the four tickets, I was entitled to a free download of a Blue Rodeo album. I wanted to pick up the classics – meaning, the ones that had the songs I actually know – whereas Mark wanted newer stuff. We compromised, by which I mean he left it entirely up to me. That’s good teamwork. I picked their new live album, their two most recent studio albums, and Five Days in July. I listened to precisely none of these in preparation for the show. Mika and I did, however, listen to some Blue Rodeo themed station on Apple Music on the night before. And mostly I paid attention to the songs I actually know.
We got to the Conexus Arts Centre fairly early with lots of time to check out the stuff table. Lots of vinyl, lots of shirts, all the stuff you’d expect. Didn’t get anything. We checked our coats, which I hate doing because then you’re stuck there forever when it’s time to go home, but the alternative in this weather is either to freeze to death on the way to and/or from the show, or boil up until you evaporate during the show itself. And I wanted to see the show. I’d hate to have… mist it.
I think maybe I’m tired.
THAT JOKE WAS GREAT AND I AM LEAVING IT IN DESPITE ALL INSTINCTS
ANYWAY WHATEVER
WHEN MARK AND ARLETTE GOT THERE MARK ASKED FOR DORITOS AND I THINK HE WAS KIDDING BUT ARLETTE BOUGHT HIM DORITOS ANYWAY BECAUSE ARLETTE GETS SHIT DONE AND THEN MARK HAD TO EAT THE DORITOS WHICH IS A PRETTY GOOD OUTCOME FOR A JOKE I HAVE TO SAY
I didn’t get Doritos. Or help Mark with his Doritos. We’d just had Wok Box. It was good. Would go again. And will do so in about 7 hours or so, in fact. This concert review brought to you by Wok Box. “Wok Box: for when you get old and you can’t eat mozza sticks and chicken fingers every day because you are scared of your doctor.”
The bar, apart from Doritos, also had a drink called a PineApple Upside Down Cake (their spelling choices) which was pineapple juice, birthday cake vodka, and 7-Up. I couldn’t tell if I wanted one really badly or if I wanted to punch the guy who thought this up. I settled on “I don’t want to have to pee during the show.”
Our opener was Terra Lightfoot. After last year, I was leery of people named Lightfoot but she was really good. She occupies a similar part-country/part-rock space like Blue Rodeo. Do I know from song titles? Not at all, apart from a song called NFB, which I liked, but is accidentally not on her “limited edition” vinyl. She mentioned that the last time she played Regina was at O’Hanlon’s, so the Conexus Arts Centre is a big step up in terms of prominence, but I bet her show at O’Hanlon’s would have been killer.
I took a break from writing this to bus downtown and watch my work friends play with their toy helicopters. I picked Lightfoot’s album, Every Time My Mind Runs Wild, as the soundtrack. It was quite good; well worth checking out if it’s on your streaming service of choice. Or you could buy it. That’s still an option in places.
Unfortunately, this break of mine has now lasted eight days and counting. The Whitehorse and Headstones shows have come and gone and both have even been reviewed. I am apparently now far enough behind to bend the fabric of space and time. This was inevitable. Much like when I started this thing, I would like to be asleep, but no! I soldier on in hopes of sleeping tomorrow.
Blue Rodeo had, like, six lamps on the stage. This is important for you to know. Now you feel like you were there. I think this is like that VR stuff you hear about on blogs. An immersive experience. To complete the illusion, surround yourself with assholes. Seriously, this show had the loudest, most obnoxious drunks I’d encountered in some time. Oh, did they yell. They wanted to go into great detail about how much they love Blue Rodeo and how happy they were that Blue Rodeo was playing there. I kind of rolled my eyes at this, but secretly, I just wanted it to escalate to the point where there were five-minute audience monologues between songs. “THIS MESSAGE IS FOR ALL MEMBERS OF THE MUSICAL ENSEMBLE BLUE RODEO. ON BEHALF OF THE CITIZENS OF REGINA, SASKATCHEWAN, I WANT TO PROFESS MY PROFOUND GRATITUDE FOR YOUR APPEARANCE HERE THIS EVENING. AS YOU MAY KNOW, REGINA WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1882 AND WAS NAMED IN HONOUR OF QUEEN VICTORIA…”
The drunks also yelled song requests, to which Jim Cuddy said “Thanks. We wouldn’t have thought of playing that.” He responded to a request for Try by saying that they were, as hard as they could. I couldn’t tell if the band was amused or irritated by these outbursts. Maybe a bit of both?
I didn’t have any run-ins with the drunks personally. The closest I had was the lady to my right who was VERY excited for Blue Rodeo and for our great seats. She went “EEEEEEEEEE” at me when they played one of their hits, and I thought “man, when we get to the show-ending crowd singalong of Hasn’t Hit Me Yet, she’s going to LOSE HER MIND.” Which, pretty much, yeah.
So yeah, the show was a little bit predictable, but not entirely. I got my phone out to record what I thought would be said singalong, but they swerved me and brought out Terra Lightfoot and her band to join them on Lost Together first. Which is here:
See? Lamps.
So how was the show? Well, it was very good. This should not surprise. Blue Rodeo are very talented musicians and songwriters. You do not need me to tell you that. (You need me to tell you about their lamps.) But it wasn’t as good as this year’s Folk Festival show. It felt like both shows had the same amount of energy, only this time, it had to be spread twice as far. They would go long stretches playing only new material, which again was GOOD, but not what most people were there to hear. And things like the show-closing singalong were great the first time. Now they’re still fun, but an expected part of the show. But then putting those two points next to each other suggests that I don’t want to see stuff I’ve seen before but I also am not very interested in anything new. So what the hell do you do with that? Go to a show, have a good time, and maybe don’t think too hard about it.
This is the story of the overly ambitious eagle... 