SLCR #292: Guns N’ Roses (August 27, 2017)

Many years ago, I was in line to get into the Odeon in Saskatoon to see Hawksley Workman. This drunk dude stumbled down the street and asked us what the line was for. Someone told him it was Guns N’ Roses, who were broken up or fighting with each other or something at the time.

“YEAH,” said our new drunken friend, “GUNS IS FUCKIN’ ROSES.”

They sure is.

And I really thought that was as close as I’d ever come to seeing Guns N’ Roses, but here we are. Remember how Mika initially really wanted to go to Bryan Adams despite having never shown any previous interest in Bryan Adams? That was kind of the situation here again. Guns N’ Roses was announced for our new stadium well before Adams was, and Mika seemed real keen on going. Me? I dunno. I knew all the big hits but I also didn’t care so much. But I’ll go to pretty much anything for any reason, and Mika wanting to go is reason enough.

Plus, who figured this would ever happen? They were giant stars but also the textbook example of rock n’ roll scandal and excess. Books have been written about their troubled history and it would take someone far more knowledgeable than me to put together the timeline of breakups, reunions, and personnel changes. The idea that they’d hit a point where something vaguely resembling the classic lineup was able to survive an entire tour together was inconceivable. But here we are.

I mentioned that I am not really a Guns N’ Roses fan. Really, I shouldn’t approach this like a normal review. It should be more of a fish-out-of-water piece, like when Vice sends a writer to a Trump rally or the Gathering of the Juggalos. That said, my only initial observation about G’n’R fans is that they obey no rule about not wearing the band’s shirt to their own concert.

We got to the mall at about 5:30 to catch the stadium shuttle. They’ve finally got the get-to-the-stadium part relatively down. We were on a bus and in motion within 15 minutes. A line of similar length took an hour and 15 minutes for Bryan Adams, causing us to miss the first few songs from Our Lady Peace. This time, we got inside, walked up the ramp, and came out on our level just in time for the first few songs by Our Lady Peace.

Since tickets went on sale so long ago, I had to buy them before ever having visited our new stadium. Also, I didn’t want to spend a ton of money. Folks, I have to tell you, mistakes were made. I knew we were close to the stage and up high, but we were much closer and much higher than I remembered. We were in the back row of the section, looking down on the stage from the side. The view was less than ideal. The sound, worse. And we were all the way on the opposite side of the stadium from the buses, ensuring that it would be a long wait to get home. James, this was not your finest work. In fact, I’d go so far as “catastrophic failure.”

So, Our Lady Peace. I had hopes that since they’d just played here three months ago, we’d get a different set of tunes. Nope! It was almost the exact same setlist. The good news is we showed up in time to hear Naveed and Superman’s Dead this time. The bad news is that the sound was worse – but again, that was a function of where we were sitting. I don’t blame them for the sound. I do blame them for not mixing things up at all. Whatever. Much like last time, this was fine if not thrilling.

OLP finished at 7:00 and Guns N’ Roses was scheduled to start at 7:30. Mika had been told that G’n’R was starting an hour late in each city along this tour. If anything, this seemed awfully optimistic judging by Axl Rose’s long and storied past. I gave it some time for the first wave of people to disperse and at about 6:50, I left in search of food. Ridiculous lineups at every vendor, of course. For convenience’s sake, I went to the one nearest our seats and got poutine since it appeared to be the only thing they sold with a lid – and I’d need that assistance when carrying the snacks back to my seat, since I also got us each a bottle of water and I wasn’t allowed to keep the caps on them. It was an awkward walk back.

Anyway, my foreshadowing is never subtle and you’ve already figured out that Guns N’ Roses started at 7:30 on the nose and I missed the first song or two. I’d tell you what they were, but I have no idea. I went into the show wondering just how many G’n’R songs I actually knew. Talking to Mika, I figured there were actually quite a few – but the sound was so muddy where we were that there were a lot of songs that sounded familiar but I couldn’t quite place. She even said something similar and she’s much better at Name That Tune than I am. All of the really big singles were apparent, of course – Welcome to the Jungle, November Rain, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, You Could Be Mine, stuff like that. There was an unexpected cover of Black Hole Sun, which I assume was a tribute to the late Chris Cornell. That was nice. And they played Live and Let Die with extra pyro. I’ve said this before but pyrotechnics are my least favourite of all the -technics, and while our seats may have sucked if we wanted to see or hear the band, they were GREAT if you wanted to be close to fireworks and other explosions. Which I assure you I did not.

I’m just gonna say this – I was not the intended audience for this show and I did not dig it at all. Everyone else I heard from loved it. Listen to them and not to me. I’m the problem here. Put me in better seats, and I’d likely have had a good time. I mean, there are all kinds of bands that I don’t really care about that I’d go see just for the spectacle of it all, and this was quite a spectacle. And the songs I knew (and could make out) were enjoyable despite everything. Maybe we should have left our seats and watched the show standing on the concourse level. Lots of people sitting near us did that. Or maybe I should have just held off on buying tickets – the show didn’t come close to selling out, and on the day of the show, one friend got decent seats for much cheaper than ours, and another saw $250-per-person floor seats going for around what we paid. There are multiple lessons here.

Having dealt with several bus debacles leaving the stadium, we skipped out on the encore in favour of a quicker departure (so no Paradise City for us). This turned out to be a surprisingly amusing decision since we wound up near some of the drunkest humans I’ve seen in quite some time. One man in particular told a loud story about how he met a lady at the show and she gave him her number and they kissed and it was his “first kiss in a looooooooong time.” He then detailed his plans to continue drinking (“water’s for pussies”) and how he lost his hotel key but was going to talk the hotel clerk into letting him into the room even though it was under someone else’s name. Then he expressed a great interest in getting some cocaine and declared that a woman he was sitting with was “the coke queen of Yorkton.” He then backtracked, with a really loud and exaggerated “I’M JUST KIDDING ABOUT THAT. ONLY KIDDING.” And then we got to the mall and he peed on the side of it. I avoided eye contact with Mika for the entire bus ride home because I’d have lost it otherwise. Good sir, you and your cocaine and pee salvaged my evening.

UPCOMING CONCERTS:
• The Sadies (September 14)
• BA Johnston (September 15)
• Steve Earle & The Dukes (September 27)
• The New Pornographers w/Born Ruffians (October 6)
• Whitehorse w/Terra Lightfoot (October 13)
• Sarah Slean (October 14)
• Martha Wainwright (October 22)
• David Myles w/Port Cities (October 24)
• Headstones w/SNAKEandtheCHAIN (November 17)
• Cold Specks (November 24)
• Tanya Tagaq & the Regina Symphony Orchestra (November 25)

SLCR #291: k.d. lang (August 26, 2017)

It was pretty early in the year when this show was announced and tickets went on sale. Mika’s a long-time fan, and I’ve seen k.d. lang a few times before and knew it would be good, so I was pretty pleased about this. I had high hopes of summoning some more of my front-row magic that’s been doing so well of late, but no dice – those were premium VIP tickets with the exclusive merchandise, meet & greet, all that good stuff. As for the regular seats, they were plentiful but also selling quite quickly – every pair I tried to grab wound up sold to someone else before I could complete the online transaction. Rather than get shut out entirely, I retreated to the comfortable familiarity of two seats on the end of Row L For Legroom, but – if you can possibly believe this – on the other side of the concert hall this time. Wild!

Several months later, the Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather dream match was signed, and of course, it was on the same night as this show. Friends immediately made plans and I immediately declined them. Skipping the ridiculous sports spectacle of the year in favour of going to see k.d. lang was possibly not the most macho I’ve ever felt*, but I have no regrets. The fight was better than everyone was expecting, but I can’t adequately describe how low that bar was set. I still haven’t seen it and have no real need to.

*actually, it was about on par with every day

We got to the Conexus Arts Centre with only a little time to spare – I always show up way early and am always pleased with myself when I fight the urge and things work out alright. The place was packed – tickets sold out on the first day, with the exception of the aforementioned VIP packages. And those ones went soon after. We got inside, checked out the Stuff Table, and found our seats. I was delighted to learn that Row L For Legroom has the same legroom on either side. I was more delighted to not feel like the oldest person at a concert. Far from it – the guy sitting in front of us asked us how we got in, since it looked like there’d been an age restriction at the door.

Our openers were local duo Kacy & Clayton. You may remember them from such concert reviews as #225, when they opened for (and then played with) Ryan Boldt. Since then, they’ve put out at least one more album and have done some shows in the US. That’s neat! I like watching people’s careers progress.

This was a lot like the last time I saw them, though they didn’t have any other musicians this time. He still played guitar. She still sang. They did pleasant folky songs that sounded nice if somewhat similar to one another. The sound wasn’t the best and I found it hard to make out the lyrics. One song made repeated mention of the Santa Fe Trail. If you want more information than that, I don’t know what to tell you. Clayton said “I see you guys have a lot of exits” which was funny but then I was distracted by just how many glowing red exit signs there are there. I suppose it beats not having enough. And now I’m distracted again.

The problem with aisle seats is dealing with all the people passing by you, so we headed out into the lobby for the intermission. Don’t let the change in location fool you – we did the same stuff as ever; namely, showed each other cute animal pictures (and occasional Japanese foods) on Instagram. We’re a thrill to hang out with and I don’t know why we aren’t surrounded by hangers-on at all times.

This tour was to mark the 25th anniversary of k.d. lang’s album, ingénue. These shows usually make me feel old but I can’t say I was a huge fan of lang’s at the time, so it didn’t have any effect on me. And to be fair, I didn’t see many 16-year-old boys at this show either. Anyway, lang was – of course – playing the album all the way through. I’d assumed I’d heard the album a bunch since my mom had it, but I only really knew the two singles. It turns out that it’s a well-designed album for these kinds of anniversary tours, since you get the first single Miss Chatelaine three songs in, and the big hit, Constant Craving, is the very last track. I wonder how often that happens. It has to be rare, doesn’t it, where the album’s big hit is the very last song? Now I want to go look at all my CDs. Where are my CDs? What are CDs?

Anyway, that album ain’t that long – I didn’t mean to use “ain’t” there but I’m not changing it now – so she played a few more of her own songs before closing the main set with three covers of Canadian artists. You likely know which ones. The crowd did, with one guy yelling “HALLELUJAH” as soon as she said she was going to do a few covers, and someone else yelling “JONI MITCHELL” a few words into lang’s story about playing Mitchell’s song in front of her. I thought “I bet the third will be Neil Young” and it was. She has her go-tos.

When that dude yelled for Hallelujah, she said “I’m not sure how to take that” and everyone laughed. And I get it; if you shout out “Hallelujah!” people will think you’re REAL into whatever you were just told. But I wonder if it’s weird for her. She’s more than accomplished as a songwriter in her own right, but the song that’s become her trademark is someone else’s. And she wasn’t the first to do it in that style – her version is more Cale or Buckley than Cohen. Who knows. Maybe that’s not something she’d care about. Just thinking out loud here. Except written down. But you know.

Anyway, she did a few more songs for the encore, thanked us for coming out (“and if you DID come out tonight, congratulations”), and that was that. Her voice is as strong as ever and her band is great, so this was basically exactly what (and as good as) I expected. I do think I liked her last show here a little better, mainly because she didn’t have to play a whole album in order and had a little more freedom when picking the songs – but that’s a minor thing and one I kinda expected. All told, I had a delightful time and am more than satisfied with my life choices. You missed out, 16-year-old boys. I hope you liked your punching. And I hope somebody skipped to the end and read that without context.