SLCR #273: The Tea Party (March 18, 2017)

I can write this in 15 minutes before bed, right?

A little better than 20 years ago (god), Pat invited me to go see The Tea Party with him at Louis’. I didn’t know anything about The Tea Party and I didn’t really know Pat that well – it was the first time we ever hung out without Deserée around – but he had a spare ticket and knew that I was generally up to go see any band for any reason. Apart from being historic in my friendship with Pat, this gig was fondly remembered because it was Halloween and there was a girl there in a genie costume (think Barbara Eden) that remains memorable to this day. Even without that, I had a fine time though Pat was somewhat disgusted that I was so ignorant about the band yet still found myself with a coveted ticket for the sold-out show.

Back in 2011, 6 years and 110 reviews ago, I saw The Tea Party for the second time, this time because Mika wanted to go. During that 15-year span between concerts, the band went on hiatus for many years. I was barely more familiar with them the second time out and wasn’t really super pumped to go, but they put on a really good (and, again, sold out) show. Though they sounded the same as ever, their personalities had softened over the years and that was a pleasant surprise. Also, I’m pretty sure that this was the last show I ever went to at the Distrikt but if I have 15 minutes, I’m not about to fact-check that.

Now it is 2017. There’s been another Tea Party album since then. They still own teaparty.com and I don’t imagine that’s as valuable as it would have been back in 2011 but it’s still probably worth something. They’ve moved from the late lamented Distrikt to the much larger casino but this show still sold out a month in advance. This makes three straight shows where I’ve been surprised by how popular they are and you’d think maybe I’d learn something from this.

It was also the first time I’ve ever been to a sold-out show at the casino where they offered general admission standing room on the floor. You can fit a lot of people in there. And there were some characters. Mixed in with a ton of people who looked like me (old doughy dudes in Louis CK cosplay), there were definitely some interesting choices of attire, haircut, and makeout technique. It was some of the best people watching I’ve had outside of Las Vegas.

The Tea Party has been around for quite a while, and this was the 20th anniversary tour for their album Transmission. I had an earlier album, The Edges of Twilight, but was only familiar with Temptation, the big single from Transmission. I had big plans of giving the album a once-through before the show, but when I went into my Apple Music, one of my daily playlists it chose for me was Jukebox Hits: ’90s Alt, Vol. 1, so sorry guys, you lost out to Spacehog and Marcy Playground.

Someday I’ll remember that whenever I hear a song that sounds vaguely familiar, like the most generic 90s alt-rock song possible, it’s always, always Silverchair. But I digress.

Anyway, as one would expect, The Tea Party played all of Transmission, though not in order. This nicely solved the issue that can develop with these play-the-whole-album anniversary shows; namely, everyone knows the hits from the first half of the album and nobody knows the back half. This let them build to and close with Temptation instead of starting with it.

After no opener and a bit of a late start (20 minutes – not even worth noting at most shows but an eternity in casino time), playing Transmission took about an hour. After that, they took an intermission and came back for the second half. Or the third third, really, since the second part was only about a half-dozen songs. There were a few more songs I knew (Heaven Coming Down, Sister Awake, The Bazaar) and also a selection of covers, including Heroes and Paint It, Black.

I mentioned before that the band’s personalities had softened over the years. Back in the day, they wrote dark, moody, mysterious songs. Now, they joke about writing dark, moody, mysterious songs. I can’t see The Tea Party of 20 years ago doing that, and I especially can’t see them starting Sister Awake and using that to segue into U2’s With or Without You because it was St. Patrick’s Day yesterday and it kind of fits, so why not?

Like at the previous shows, I was not really the intended audience but I still thought they were quite good. If you want actual musical opinions, I don’t know. I liked the harder stuff better than the more ballady parts. The Middle Eastern influences that have always been their differentiators are always interesting. They mentioned some of their 90s contemporaries like I Mother Earth and Moist, and I liked The Tea Party’s show better than when we saw those bands at the casino. (Mika liked I Mother Earth best of the three. But we still appreciated your efforts, guys from Moist.)

Back in the day, I’d go to shows with Pat and he’d go to the bathroom and come back and report on weird goings-on. As such, it was only fitting that Mika came back from the bathroom to let me know that someone was loudly complaining that the casino was cleaning the bathroom during intermission (note: this was not actually happening) and that if the four people ahead of her in line didn’t hurry up, she was going to piss in the sink. This is not something that I’ve ever encountered in the men’s room. I wondered what kind of person does that, since most drunk dudes I encounter at concerts just want to be loud and don’t bother with making words. Luckily, I was able to find out! As we were leaving, a very tipsy but very friendly lady told us how much she liked our glasses (specifically Mika’s; I only got added into the compliment through some initial confusion) and wished us a good night. I was later informed that this was piss-in-the-sink lady. I was pleased to make her acquaintance and glad that, wherever she eventually wound up peeing, she had a pleasant evening.

UPCOMING CONCERTS
• Bill & Joel Plaskett w/Mayhemingways (March 23)
• Lisa LeBlanc (March 30)
• I Love The 90s feat. Salt N Pepa, Vanilla Ice, Color Me Badd, Young MC, and Rob Base (April 1)
• The Last Waltz Remembered feat. Corb Lund, Matt Andersen, Amy Helm, & the Russell Broom House Band (April 5)
• BA Johnston w/Napalmpom (April 28)
• kd lang (August 26)
• Guns N’ Roses (August 27)
• Martha Wainwright (October 22)

SLCR #272: Blackie & The Rodeo Kings (March 8, 2017)

As I’m writing this, it’s Sunday night at the end of my week-long staycation. With weekends and an EDO, I had nine straight days off work for the first time since last summer. This is coming after a months-long project that felt like it took years. I’ve always looked forward to vacations but this was the first time that one was really necessary, and I won’t lie, it was great. I ate whatever I wanted, read a few books, got some long overdue housework done, and got my 10,000 steps a day despite uncooperative weather. All told, it was delightful and the only sad part is that I have to wait THREE WHOLE WEEKS before I get to do it again. Good thing I have this coming Friday off; I don’t know how I’d survive otherwise.

There’s something to be said for banking ALL the overtime.

I did something else on my time off too. I wrote a song! It was on the way to this show, actually. I must have felt the music in the air. I haven’t recorded anything yet, but it’s called “Driving Behind Some Dickbag in His Stupid Orange Kia Soul.” Those are the only lyrics too, but the punctuation changes when you sing it. Distribute exclamation marks like so: “Dick! Bag!” and “Ki! A! Soul!”

My good vacation mood buoyed me through a fruitless hour-long search of the mall for a new pair of texting gloves (got some since then, hooray) and carried on to when I met up with Mark, Arlette, and Arlette’s son Kenton at the casino. Mark said I looked taller. I think it was because by that point, I had spent nearly a week not being crushed by the weight of the world and I was able to return to my normal, God-intended height. This was probably bad news for Kenton since I wound up sitting in front of him.

By sheer happenstance, our table was next to that of another coworker, Paul, and his wife. Paul is one of my absolute favourite people to irritate; more than once he has called me a “fucking fucker” while changing colours. But I’ve switched jobs and I think he mostly works from home now, so I was so surprised and delighted to see him that I forgot to wreck the evening for him. Next time.

You may remember that about a year and a half ago, I saw LeE HARVeY OsMOND at the Exchange. This was much the same deal in that Tom Wilson is in B&RK (it’s a long band name to type and they must have approved of this shortened version since it’s on their bass drum) and is in (or just is?) Lee Harvey Osmond (one wacky spelling permitted per review). And again, I didn’t really know any of the Kings’ music before the show. And again, Thompson Wilson (Tom’s son) was opening. And again, we were there with a ton of people Mark knew because Mark and this dude named Carver know a lot of the same people and Carver became pals with Tom Wilson through means I was once told but now only vaguely remember. And I still don’t think I’ve ever actually met Carver despite having been in his presence innumerable times at all kinds of shows. HOWEVER this show was different by being in the casino instead of the Exchange, by being a mostly different band doing entirely different music, and because I was on a vacation high instead of feeling like I’d swallowed a ball of knives and wanted to die. That Lee Harvey Osmond show was the highlight of a no-good very bad day.

But I digress. We met up, found our table, I poked Paul a few times, and Thompson Wilson took the stage. Well, first there was a local DJ who introduced the show and told us we’d be joined soon by “Thomas” Wilson, and then Stephen Fearing of B&RK talked for a bit and got the young fellow’s name right. You’d hope he would. The set was just Thompson and a guitar for the most part, though he was joined by his godfather, Junkhouse drummer Ray Farrugia, for a few songs. I wouldn’t call it country, but the influence is there. I think Thompson played all original songs – it was a very short set (25 minutes or so) and I didn’t recognize any covers, anyway. He seemed a little more confident than last time despite the much larger room, and this was quite enjoyable. Everyone seemed especially fond of the line “she asked me to kiss her somewhere dirty, so I took her to my home in Hamilton.”

A quick break and B&RK was up for two hours of country/roots rock. I don’t know how many more times I can say “this was real good” without any great detail and still expect to have any readers left, but here we are. Talented musicians! Good songs! Songs I didn’t know before and don’t know now but really liked at the time! A pair of loud drunks wanted to make the show about themselves and Tom Wilson made fun of them in a way that everyone else caught but they didn’t!

This was B&RK’s Kings & Kings tour. A few years back, they recorded an album called Kings & Queens where they were joined on each song by different female vocalists like Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Holly Cole, and Serena Ryder. Kings & Kings, of course, is the same idea, just with dudes: Bruce Cockburn, Eric Church, City & Colour, Keb’ Mo’, Vince Gill, and others. Looking at the album online just now, I note Murray McLauchlin is not listed, which makes his cameo appearance at this show a bit odd. Apparently, in Calgary the night before, B&RK were joined by McLauchlin, Ian Tyson, and Lindi Ortega, none of whom appear on the Kings or Queens albums if the iTunes tracklists are to be believed. Anyway, McLauchlin joined the band for three or four songs; Try Walkin’ Away was one I recognized, though it seems Murray McLauchlin is one of those people I know OF, not necessarily ABOUT. After the first tune, Tom Wilson was joking about how the song fell apart at the end, saying that B&RK “promises the best in semi-professional entertainment.” Sometimes it’s good to be musically ignorant; I didn’t notice anything was up.

For the encore, they invited everyone up to the front of the stage; until then, it had been one of those shows where everyone sits and applauds politely. Getting a bunch of people up to the front added to the atmosphere and thinking about it now, could have been done much earlier in the evening. But I can’t really call that a complaint if it took me four days to think of it.

UPCOMING CONCERTS
• The Tea Party (March 18)
• Bill & Joel Plaskett w/Mayhemingways (March 23)
• Lisa LeBlanc (March 30)
• I Love The 90s feat. Salt N Pepa, Vanilla Ice, Color Me Badd, Young MC, and Rob Base (April 1)
• The Last Waltz Remembered feat. Corb Lund, Matt Andersen, Amy Helm, & the Russell Broom House Band (April 5)
• BA Johnston w/Napalmpom (April 28)
• kd lang (August 26)
• Guns N’ Roses (August 27)
• Martha Wainwright (October 22)

SLCR #271: Lyle Lovett & John Hiatt (March 1, 2017)

Over the past year, I’ve had pretty good luck getting front row seats to shows at the Conexus Arts Centre. It’s just a matter of paying attention to when tickets go on sale, combined with a little bit of luck (and, in some cases, dropping ridiculous coin). In this case, I had good luck – I was at my desk at work when the email came in announcing this show, and ticket sales began immediately. Look at all those front row seats! However, there was also some bad luck – I was already booked to see the Philosopher Kings at the Exchange. I’m not a huge Philosopher Kings fan, if I’m being honest; I only know one or two of their songs and enjoyed them but didn’t love them. Mika liked the band and would have gone except it was a school night. She was disappointed enough that I thought “if she thinks they’re that good, I should check them out.” Because that’s what kind of supportive husband I am.

Long story short, the Philosopher Kings show got cancelled. They’re allegedly coming back later this year to tour a new album. Of course, by the time they made this decision, the front row seats for this other show were long gone. So rather than sit as close as possible, I decided to go to this show as cheaply as possible. I was still front row centre, only it was the front row of the third balcony. At least I’d be able to see everything.

By the time the show rolled around, it seemed like tickets had sold reasonably well, but they still put the balcony seats on sale a week before the show (too late for me, alas). Poking around on the venue’s website revealed similar sales figures for this show, Colin James, and Tom Cochrane – and yet Charley Pride was nearly sold out. Good on him. The first half of that show will be good.

I showed up pretty close to the start of the show so I got to be the guy making everyone in the row stand up. I’d feel bad except I don’t at all; as one who normally sits on the end of the row, I’m usually the one doing the standing. Despite sitting in the middle of the row, I never once had to stand up to let anyone go by – I think this is probably due to the fact that because we were in the front row of the third balcony, any movement meant certain death. We were real high up, and that railing was real low. When I shuffled to my seat, I had to turn and face away from the stage because it was freaking me out. It turns out I will happily take awkward interactions with strangers over vertigo and potential doom. This feeling never really went away for the length of the show. Even when the musicians were playing and the lights were darkened and I had no visual sense of how high up we were, it was always kind of there in my mind. Suffice to say this was an experiment I may not repeat. Except in a month or so at The Last Waltz Remembered when I repeat it.

This show was billed as an acoustic evening with Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt. I wasn’t entirely sure what this would entail – would they take turns, was there an opener, etc. Turns out it was exactly what it said it would be. With no opening act, Lovett and Hiatt both took the stage right at 7:30*, each claiming to be the other man. They briefly discussed their laundry before Hiatt launched into Drive South. For the remainder of the night, they took turns playing songs, usually unaided but sometimes with the other musician playing along or singing backing vocals.

I cannot say I knew much about Lyle Lovett before this show, and even less about John Hiatt. I bought this ticket because I thought “this sounds like it would be good” without really knowing enough to back that up. In short, this concert is why I go to random shows for the heck of it. This show was fantastic. Nothing flashy about it, just two excellent songwriters and musicians. Great songs. Great musicianship; Lovett in particular showed off some impressive technique. Great singing; Lovett has a more traditional voice, for lack of a better term, while Hiatt was more inclined to work vocal flourishes into his tunes. Excellent sound in the Arts Centre, too.

Also, bring an ignoramus as previously mentioned, I didn’t really expect this show to be as funny as it was. Lovett and Hiatt had an effortless banter that added an extra dimension to an already great show. It felt like two old friends telling stories and swapping jokes and just spending some time together – which I suppose it was. I’m sure some of it is similar every night, but some of it was off the cuff. During one song, Hiatt flubbed a line and then cracked himself up repeatedly over the mistake, which led to Lovett telling a story of doing a similar thing on national TV.

And that’s about it, really. Nearly three hours (the lack of an opener was not a negative) of two excellent musicians just killing it. This show was so good that I looked up the rest of their tour dates and seeing they were headed to Calgary, I messaged Colin and told him he needed to go to this. He did not. Said he “already had family plans.” His loss.

(j/k Colin I am sure your cousin is a cool guy)

*Okay, really, it was more like 7:36 – late enough for a really grumpy old man to loudly complain about “what time is a 7:30 show supposed to start?” but not so late for literally anyone else in the building to have noticed

UPCOMING CONCERTS
• Blackie & the Rodeo Kings (March 8)
• The Tea Party (March 18)
• Bill & Joel Plaskett w/Mayhemingways (March 23)
• Lisa LeBlanc (March 30)
• I Love The 90s feat. Salt N Pepa, Vanilla Ice, Color Me Badd, Young MC, and Rob Base (April 1)
• The Last Waltz Remembered feat. Corb Lund, Matt Andersen, Amy Helm, & the Russell Broom House Band (April 5)
• BA Johnston w/Napalmpom (April 28)
• kd lang (August 26)
• Guns N’ Roses (August 27)
• Martha Wainwright (October 22)