SLCR #366: The Pack a.d. (October 2, 2022)

Here’s a show where I don’t know the band that well and I don’t have much to say apart from “we went out and it was nice.” Are we really back to normal?

I kind of know The Pack a.d. I’ve even seen them before – 7 years ago, which seems both impossible and pretty obviously accurate. Loud, fun, more of a Mika show than a James show but not in a bad way. I expected more of the same and that’s what we got. 

We showed up fairly early and attendance was… well, we didn’t have to look hard to find parking. A theme that’s come back time and again this year and one I’m tired of. Go to shows. If you can afford it. And if you feel comfortable doing so. And probably like 20 other qualifiers. I do get it, as much as I want to pretend otherwise. 

The opener was a local duo called Spoils, or possibly The Spoils, both were said. There are multiple bands by this name (both with and without the the), so if you’re looking for them, you’ll need to narrow it down by location – though doing so turned up a Bandcamp page with one (1) song on it, so you won’t get much of a taste. Loud, guitar-driven rock that would seem to pair nicely with The Pack a.d., though it started off not being my thing. I came around somewhat by the end of it. Not sure if they got it together or if I did. Probably me. Mika liked them and she has better taste than I do.

The Pack a.d. was more to my liking. I only know a handful of their songs but they played them all and the set flew by. 

This was their last show of 2022 and I did sense what Mika later called some “end of the tour vibes.” It felt like maybe a little fatigue was setting in. Not in terms of the performance, which was great. I just had a sense that maybe they were tired and ready to be off the road for a bit. Or maybe I’m imagining things. 

I look forward to seeing them again in 2029 and having a delightful time and having nothing to say about it.

SLCR #365: Joel Plaskett (September 17, 2022)

This show has been planned for so long that my tickets have the show date listed as May 2, 2020. At the pace I’m churning these things out as of late, you’d be forgiven for assuming I actually saw the show then and only got around to writing about it now.

Some of the advertising said “Joel Plaskett.” Other ads said “Joel Plaskett Emergency,” implying a full band. When it was booked, I was pretty sure Mo Kenney was opening, but as we finally approached the actual show, it was made clear that Mo would be here and was part of the show, but wasn’t doing a set of their own. So I just put “Joel Plaskett” up in the title for simplicity’s sake. Even though we got a full band. And Mo did 2 of their own songs. See? Simplicity.

The Exchange was a smaller venue than usual for Joel Plaskett and it sold out. Having 34 months between tickets going on sale and the thrice-delayed actual show gave the stragglers lots of time to make up their minds too, I suppose. 

With no opener, the band split the show into two sets. Joel and two of his bandmates started things off, with Mo Kenney joining a few songs in to sing the “at the post office” verse of Extraordinary. 

The first set drew heavily from Joel’s latest album, and honestly, I don’t know it well. He once put out a triple album called Three, but his new album is called 44 and is – you guessed it – a quadruple album with 44 songs. And I love Joel but that’s a lot to take in all at once (said the guy sending out 4 concert reviews in one day). I’ve heard some of it and did enjoy it – I’ve never thought “this Joel Plaskett song is unenjoyable” – but for me, live shows will determine the favourites off 44 over time.

The second half leaned more on Plaskett’s back catalogue so there was much singing along. This is where you’d find your Fashionable Peoples and Love This Towns and whatnot, but still with a few new tunes. One he wrote for a virtual campfire for a youth organization. Named – and this is a thinker – “Campfire Song,” this was made for singalongs. It’s rare that I’d remember much from a new song at a concert a month later, but I could still sing the chorus of this one and I assure you I will not. In addition, Dave Marsh from the band sang a song he’d written called What I Like About Charles. Not about our new King. Presumably.

What can you say? This was super fun. I’d have been stunned if it wasn’t. The next time will be super fun too and hopefully we don’t have to survive another global pandemic to get there. It seems like a reasonable ask, and yet.

SLCR #364: Crash Test Dummies (September 11, 2022)

I still can’t really wrap my head around this idea that it’s 2022 and the Crash Test Dummies are just going to play here every few years. I thought this was all done. I think they thought this was all done. 

I was anticipating an issue picking up the tickets, seeing as how the credit card I’d bought them with went missing (I left it at the Co-op as I am smart) and has since been replaced. The last time we saw the Dummies at the casino, I wound up with them having no record of my purchase and they gave me handwritten blank tickets with the seat numbers on them, so I was fearing the worst. I said as much to Jeff, who replied “yeah, but you’re with me,” and that put me at ease. Not only has he gotten into multiple events with missing tickets, he once made it into an entire other country without a passport. And, true to form, we had no problem with at all.

I checked out the stuff table before the show and it was pretty packed. Most of their albums were there, CD and vinyl, all autographed. And there was a wider variety of shirts than I’ve seen at most concerts. I picked up a few knickknack type things that I didn’t need at all but the urge to collect is, sadly, strong.

The opener – somewhat of a rarity at casino shows – was Carleton Stone. I’d seem him before as part of Port Cities when they opened for David Myles a few years back at the Artesian, but this was my first chance to see him solo. You know he’s famous because he had a song on Heartland, which I only mention because precisely one of you is a big Heartland fan (two of you, if one of you is Carleton Stone’s grandma) and I want to see if you’re still reading these things. Stone played a short, delightful set that was well-received. 

Maybe a little too well-received, actually. Our table was up at the front. To our right was a very excitable fan who was so excited for the Dummies, so excited for Carleton Stone, so excited for life itself. He was all about hollering to such an overenthusiastic degree that you kind of thought it had to be sarcastic. Pretty sure he was just trashed tho’.

I’ve seen and written about the Dummies many times and at this point, if you still need me to tell you what they sound like, you don’t care and never will. The key thing to me was that for all the times I’ve seen them, this was the time where it looked the most relaxed and like they were having the most fun. Ellen and Mitch had a whole routine worked out for How Does A Duck Know, which made her the best part of a song where she wouldn’t otherwise have much to do. And Brad was back playing guitar on some songs, which I don’t think I’ve seen him do since the times I saw them in 1999.

Ellen later told me that she didn’t think it was one of their best performances. There did seem to be some confusion about what song was next in the set at a few points, but it didn’t detract from the show, and anyway, I blame the setlist. I swiped one after the show and saw that it had some manual edits, so something got switched around late. 

That setlist:

God Shuffled His Feet

In The Days of the Caveman

Swimming In Your Ocean

Here I Stand Before Me

I Think I’ll Disappear Now

How Does a Duck Know?

When I Go Out With Artists

The Psychic

Androgynous

Comin’ Back Soon (The Bereft Man’s Song)

The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead

(A Little Something was scratched out and KNIGHTS was written in for Two Knights and Maidens – and they played neither)

He Liked to Feel It

Superman’s Song

Afternoons & Coffeespoons

(encore)

Heart of Stone

The Ghosts That Haunt Me

Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm

They have enough hits in Canada that I momentarily blanked on what the last song was going to be and then felt really dumb. I could leave this out and not tarnish your impression of me but I’ll look like an idiot for Content. Not the first time, won’t be the last.

They haven’t had a new album out since 2010’s Ooh-La-La, and with the focus on the 30th anniversary of God Shuffled His Feet, we only got one song off that album. For something that – as far as I know – didn’t sell in big numbers or get any real traction when it came out, it’s interesting to see how Heart of Stone has become an audience favourite. You could hear a pin drop during that one.  

Also an audience favourite? Ellen’s dress, primarily to the lady sitting behind us who excitedly yelled “it has pockets!” 

I’m long since back to being a civilian as far as the Dummies are concerned. I really only keep in touch with Ellen, mostly just to send each other pictures of our pets or my friends’ pets. If you got a new kitten or puppy in the past few years, odds are she’s seen them. She asked where I was sitting beforehand and made faces at me throughout the show. I tried to respond to in kind, but I was masked so had to do a lot of eyebrow work. A few of the other folks shot a quick wave or nod in my direction, which was nice. Or possibly entirely made up in my head. Really, nice either way.

SLCR #363: Regina Folk Festival (August 5-7, 2022)

DAY ONE

“It was cold as fuck and it smelled funny.”

Thank you, random stranger, for this overheard quote which summarizes Day One quite nicely. As I’m writing this over 2 months after the fact, I appreciate the assistance.

After several years, the Regina Folk Festival was back under the guidance of a new Artistic Director. We liked the lineup and got weekend passes, almost like things are normal.

They’re not, of course. It felt weird to be back. I don’t think it helped that the crowd was slow to arrive on the first night, so when we got there – a good half-hour or more after the gates opened – there was no line and there was a ton of space for us to set up our chairs. It felt a little alarming, to be honest. I always harp on how few people come out to shows here, but the folk festival has always been immune to that. Thankfully, it filled out nicely by the night’s end so we needn’t have worried.

Those who were late to arrive might have missed out on PIQSIQ. Their loss, since Mika and I agreed, once the festival was over, that they won the weekend. Two throat singing sisters from Yellowknife – super talented, funny, charming – 100% would go see again.

Look, I have approximately 73 more bands to talk about and 3 other half-finished reviews to knock off after this one and I want them out in the world before I go on vacation. In 17 hours. So I’m going to keep things short and skip the folks who had the brief in-between sets.

And I’ll also apologize now for any hilarious typos. I’m writing these on my iPad because if I have to go sit down at my computer in the office, I’ll just never do them at all, and the iPad likes to change peoples’ names on me. 

Anyway. Next up was Julie Doiron and Dany Placard. I may have seen Julie Doiron once before, opening for the Brothers Creegan a million years ago. Or maybe I didn’t and it was Julie someone else. I remember never being 100% sure. Anyway, she also falls into the talented, funny, and charming group. She was also quite sleep-deprived and was kinda giggly and spacey as a result. As far as I was concerned, this only increased the charm.

I’d seen Cadence Weapon a few times, most recently at the Exchange where the attendance barely crept into double digits. He deserved a bigger audience that night and got it here, earning the biggest reaction of the night up until that point by calling out Justin Trudeau in the song Play No Games (“I must face the facts / my Prime Minister wears blackface but he don’t really wanna face Blacks”). That said, the crowd was also really into the digs at Toronto Mayor John Tory, who really has no impact on our Saskatchewan lives whatsoever.

We missed much of Black Belt Eagle Scout as we were off getting food truck dinner. I went to El Tropezón and got fantastic tacos. Highly recommended. Mika went to the Ethiopian place and got a sampler plate. Is it conspicuous that I’m not saying more about that?

The New Pornographers are great in an I’ve-seen-them-numerous-times way. We got a solid set with a nice mix of songs spanning their entire career. AC Newman tried swapping guitars due to a broken string in the middle of Use It, which resulted in the whole song basically falling apart and they had to do it over – funny that it would happen during one of their most well-known songs given they’ve probably played at nearly every show since they released it. They tried to laugh it off but seemed a little upset by it, but oh well. Just one of those things that happens when playing live. 

It was also, as previously mentioned, cold as fuck and it smelled funny, both of which the band commented on. Welcome to Regina!

DAY TWO

A few weeks before the festival, Saturday night headliner Buffy Sainte-Marie came down with covid and was unable to appear. 

Saturday morning, Mika found out that the samosa from last night’s dinner was, indeed, as gluteny as she feared, so we were also unable to appear. 

If you’re wondering if the samosa was worth it, she assured me it was not.

DAY THREE

With better weather, we were rested, recovered, and back at it. Well, I didn’t need rest or recovery, I felt fine on Saturday and could have gone out, but the lineup was the weakest of the three nights and the folks I wanted to see come around here regularly anyway.

The opener was scheduled to be Dominique Fils-Aimé, but she pulled out a few days before the festival and was replaced by rising local star Megan Nash. I had suspected – and this was later confirmed – that a few local musicians were on standby in the event that one of the advertised acts had to pull out late. Festival planning in the age of covid, I guess. Anyway, I’d have liked to see Fils-Aimé but I’ve always enjoyed Nash so this worked out well too.

William Prince is someone else I’ve seen quite a few times. Soft-spoken, folksy, pleasant. Pleasant is a good word to describe William Prince. “This will be nice,” I think before every time I see him. And it is.

People went nuts for Begonia. I had seen her once before and I know she’s come through town repeatedly, but wasn’t expecting the amount of love Regina has for her. I don’t know if I’ll ever be a superfan but I came around – she’s got a really strong voice and seems like a cool human. 

Somewhere in here I got El Tropezón tacos again. Churros too. Mika got… something else. Not samosas. She’s sitting not far from me and I could ask her, but it was months ago now. Do you care? Would you care if it was today? Probably not. You know what you need to know which is, get tacos from El Tropezón. Maybe she got tacos? Or taco in a bag because the actual tacos had gluten? That sounds right. Let’s just assume that’s what happened.

I’ve seen Jeremy Dutcher twice now. Fantastic both times. Last time, he was with the Regina Symphony, so this was a lot more relaxed and loose. Fantastic presence and fascinating art, combining indigenous wax cylinder recordings with modern classical-insipired music. I probably butchered that description but I don’t claim to know things. My point is go listen to this.

I liked the lineup this year but will admit that by the end of Sunday I was excited for Lido Pimienta – someone I actually hadn’t seen before! This was a very politically charged set and there were some folks who seemed displeased as they packed up and left early. Musically great. Politically… I mean, I don’t think there were any sentiments that would be unexpected at a folk festival. Maybe they’re not always so overt but maybe they should be. 

All in all, a fun year if you discount any samosa-related mishaps. Good to be back. Good to be outside. Gotta check the weather next time. And invent a way to check stink levels.