SLCR #368: Headstones (November 25, 2022)

This was maybe the most concerty concert since we went back to doing stuff. Loud. Bright lights. So many people.

Granted, it was a band that was big when I was in university now playing the casino circuit, so it’s a concerty concert for people of a certain age, by people of a certain age. But I am of said certain age, getting more certain with every passing year.

In regards to said certain age, we got to the end of the workweek and the idea of going out to a show felt daunting. You know what’s nice? My house. I mean, not really; if you’ve seen it, you know it does a passable job of keeping the elements out and that’s about it. But it’s there, and we were already there. Did we really want to go elsewhere?

Ultimately, I guess we did. We arrived at the casino and the opener was already playing. I got a new Apple Watch a few weeks ago, and immediately upon walking into the show lounge, I was introduced to one of the new watch’s new features: the loud environment warning. “Repeated, long-term exposure to sounds at this level can damage your hearing,” it says. I know, watch.

The opener was Arcana Kings, formerly known as the Johnny McCuaig Band. The new name is probably an improvement, if only because I’ve never understood the Person’s Name Band format. Be a solo act or a band, not both at once. Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, I’d never seen them before, but I knew the name as they’re originally from Regina. This was fine. They had bagpipes, played by the aforementioned Johnny McCuaig, which worked for me and made them more interesting than your average bar band. They closed with a crowd-pleasing cover of It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll).

As for the Headstones, look, I really like the Headstones. For a few years there, I was seeing ridiculous numbers of concerts, and those shows elevated the Headstones in my eyes more than almost any other band I saw. They went from “I know of them, I’ve heard a few songs, they’re fine, I guess, I dunno” to one of my favourite bands of their era. They put on better live shows than their contemporaries that are still going concerns, and you know you’re going to have a good time.

But you also know exactly what you’re going to get. They’ll play all the hits, they’ll cover New Orleans is Sinking and House of the Rising Sun, you’ll get to sing along with the one that goes “fuck you, fuck you, fuck you and only you” (it’s called Fuck You), Hugh Dillon will wade out into the crowd with a long-corded mic and make the roadies’ lives difficult. (He came right up to me! I got to duck under the cord!) There were a few new songs – they just put out a new album – but then there are always a few new songs.

All of which is to say I didn’t dig this like I usually do, but it’s a me thing and not a them thing. Apart from just being tired and lazy at the end of the week, this was easily the loudest show I’d been to in years, and the most crowded show too. And we’re still masking, but judging from the crowd, we’re the only ones. (Mika overheard someone calling our masks “silly,” and if that’s the most flack we take over them, fine by me, especially since I didn’t even notice.) But between the volume and the people – and the strobe lights, and the prerecorded screechy noise they played upon ending their set – it wasn’t the best time I’d ever had. All we have coming up are smaller sit-down shows and that might be fine for now.

UPCOMING CONCERTS:
• Pierre Kwenders w/Selci and DJ Hendrika (January 27)
• Hawksley Workman w/Mauvey (January 28)

SLCR #330: Headstones (November 13, 2018)

Headstones reviews are hard to write. They’re really fun shows, but more or less the same every time out. You know it’ll be loud, lots of swearing, probably some spitting (though this has been dialed this back over time and I can’t say I mind), Hugh Dillon will run around in the crowd a lot. I even know which covers they’re going to play. All of this is fine – it doesn’t stop me from going to see them every time they come through town. But I could rerun old reviews for the most part. Hopefully I’ll have enough sense to make this short.

Got to the casino with plenty of time to pick up my ticket. No incidents this time out. Saw the same guy from work that I always see at Headstones shows. Killed time playing phone games until the show started. Christ, this is riveting.

Our openers were the Matchstick Skeletons, who got off to an inauspicious start through no fault of their own when the local radio idiot introduced them as the Matchbox Skeletons before correcting himself. They were fine. Decidedly better than Snake and the Chain from the last show, but far less memorable as a result. “You didn’t suck so bad that I’ll remember you forever” is probably not as much of a compliment as I intend it to be.

They felt restrained at points; the harder songs with more energy were fun, but too many just didn’t quite get there. They also covered Fame and (part of) When Doves Cry and it’s an interesting choice to cover well-known songs by legends. They can be crowd-pleasing numbers but you’re probably not going to compare favourably to David Bowie or Prince – few will. At least When Doves Cry was redone as a rock song, as opposed to the note-for-note soundalike version of Fame.

Speaking of covers, I am the last person on Earth to realize that the Headstones song Tweeter and the Monkey Man is a Traveling Wilburys cover. This is doubly egregious because Mika has played the Wilburys song for me before, years ago, but I forget things. Apparently the Wilburys version has more verses and makes more sense. Talking to Jeff about this, he said that it sounds more like the Wilburys slowed down a Headstones song than the Headstones sped up a Wilburys song. Personally, listening to the Wilburys’ version now, it sounds like when Mika and I are on a road trip and she makes us listen to podcasts at 1X speed instead of my normal 1.5X.

The Headstones were touring to promote the 25th anniversary re-issue of Picture of Health, their first album. This would probably make me feel super old if I was listening to them then. The entire set, before the encore, was the album in full. So a little less variation than their normal shows, but whatever, it’s a good album, lots of songs I like on it. As before, Dillon ran into the crowd a bunch and I felt for the poor techs and security staff who had to chase after him. And as before, they played a bit of Low Rider and New Orleans is Sinking.

After Tweeter, which is four songs in, Dillon asked the crowd to put their phones away so he could tell stories and we could watch the show, adding that he’d let us bring them back out later. Most folks cheered and happily did so. One guy tried taking a video of the next song, which seemed like an unwise choice given that he was close enough to the front for Dillon to see him, and Dillon had already shown a propensity for running out into the crowd. Phone went away. “I’m not going to kick you out or anything, I’m just asking you to be a man of your fucking word.”

The stage setup was pretty simple, but the lights, fog machines, and projector were all employed to good effect and gave the show a really cool look. I got a few pictures at the start and a few more during the encore once the ban was lifted, but I won’t lie – there were still a few times when I would have liked to snap a quick picture. Which is dumb; they never look good and I never go back and look through old ones. Regardless, I wasn’t about to risk incurring the wrath (or disappointment, which would be worse) of Dillon.

I won’t go into detail on the stories – if he didn’t want them recorded, he probably didn’t want them transcribed either – but it was a lot of stuff about growing up in Kingston. Some of it funny, some of it touching. Dillon went to high school with the guys from the Tragically Hip, Finny McConnell from the Mahones, and David Usher. What a ridiculous amount of talent in just a few years.

For the encore, they started with the cover of The Gambler that they now seem to do at every show. Dillon then polled the audience to see what they wanted to hear, and the calls for Cubically Contained lost out to Unsound. Or maybe that was just the plan all along. They also played Fuck You and Smile and Wave and, somewhere in there, a bit of The House of the Rising Sun. Nothing I hadn’t seen before. And Dillon said they’re coming back in 2020 and I’ll see it all again then.

SLCR #302: Headstones (November 17, 2017)

We’ve seen a lot of 90s Can-rock shows of late. Of them all – Watchmen, I Mother Earth, Big Wreck, Our Lady Peace, Limblifter, Age of Electric, Big Sugar, The Tea Party – I enjoyed the Headstones the best. They weren’t my favourite of that list back in the day – that would be Our Lady Peace – but the Headstones stuff holds up the best for me. I really enjoyed their show last year and was looking forward to their return.

This time out, they were paired with SNAKEandtheCHAIN. I didn’t pick the spacing and capitalization. When we arrived at the casino, there was a Headstones banner on stage, partially covered by a SNAKEandtheCHAIN banner. It looked like we were there to see HEASNAKEandtheCHAINNES.

You may recall that I saw Bif Naked on the night of the US election – how it is possible that was only a year ago? – and that night, her guitarist was her husband, Snake. If I didn’t call him Snake Naked then, I apologize. I should have. Anyway, he’s the Snake (or SNAKE) of SNAKEandtheCHAIN. At one point, they got referred to as “SNAKEandtheCHAIN featuring Bif Naked,” so I assume the third guy, Kuryakin, is the chain. Or CHAIN. And Bif’s just Bif.

I mentioned this last year but here’s a quick refresher regarding my feelings about Bif Naked: I used to like some of her stuff before losing interest. It was nice to see her last year, but I didn’t leave that show feeling like I’d rekindled my fandom or anything. Still, I was interested to see what her new band was all about.

The show started with Snake and Kuryakin. Snake hooked up an iPhone and lip-synched I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You. I guess he did sing some of it, since he tried to sing “take my hand” over the “shall I stay” part. Let’s assume they were just going for something silly here.

Bif Naked joined them and they launched into their first proper song, Heavy. Over the kind of music a wrestler would have entered the ring to in 1999, Bif told us, over and over, that her baby, she likes it heavy.

Then she asked who there had a safeword. “MORE is my safeword,” said Snake. Did you think that was a clever joke? Would you still think that was a clever joke after a song that repeated it over and over?

Somewhere in the crowd was JP, a guy I know from work. I’d say “a friend from work” but we never actually talk, apart from when I email him to tell him that the Headstones are coming to town, and he emails me back to let me know that he already knew (but thanks). I sent him a note on Facebook. I NEEDED to know his opinion of what we were watching.

Before the next song, Snake Naked said “you can’t even look at a woman these days without getting arrested.” Now, I’m a reasonable person. I’m willing to accept that this was said in jest. But it sure didn’t sound like it, and apart from one fellow who was in vocal agreement, the crowd didn’t really seem to know how to take it. This led into a song “about a bad boy named Frankie” who “forgot to thank me” and is “gonna get a spanking.” You may note that Frankie, thank me, and spanking all kind of rhyme. We eventually found out that Frankie forgot to thank Bif Naked for, among two other things, “swallowing your cum.” This went on for… I mean, it couldn’t possibly have been a half-hour, but it didn’t feel any less.

Next, Bif started telling a story about how Snake broke free from a Siberian prison to be here today. Mika asked if I’d like to go get drinks in the lobby instead. So we did. The bar in the casino lobby is famously slow. It took over 20 minutes to get our drinks with only maybe 10 people in front of us. I didn’t mind. We could have been back in the show lounge listening to SNAKEandtheCHAIN. Things could have been worse.

I will say that some people seemed into the show. These people were wrong, but they definitely existed. Meanwhile, we were throwing around “what the fuck was that,” “I feel embarrassed for them,” “worst band I’ve seen in years and maybe ever,” “I’m starting to reconsider my feelings about Cage the Elephant,” “do you think he’s holding Bif Naked hostage,” and “but seriously, what the fuck was that?”

On Facebook, JP replied that he’d found a good spot to stand, otherwise he’d have left too. I guess the standing spot wasn’t THAT good as we eventually saw him and his brother in the lobby. We traded theories about what we had just seen. Mika suggested that the Headstones owed Bif Naked money and so they had to let her band come on tour.

As we nursed our drinks in the lobby, we could faintly hear that they were playing Bif Naked hits Spaceman and I Love Myself Today. I choose to assume they were done well. I considered going back to listen to them but thought better of it.

I try to be positive when I write these things and I accept that some things just aren’t going to be my jam. So I will say that the sound system was good and we could hear all of the insipid repetitive lyrics really clearly. And Bif Naked seems like a really nice lady and I feel kind of bad about this whole thing. But this was terrible.

Drinks done, SNAKEandtheCHAIN (and their banner) gone, we went back into the show lounge. What can I even say about the Headstones after all that? They were exactly what you’d expect and exactly what I wanted from them. Loud, all their hits, all the fan favourites, some new stuff. And a few covers – they did The Gambler which they said they’ve been playing live ever since doing it in Regina last time and the crowd went nuts for it. And in various songs, they did part of Low Rider and two Hip classics, Blow at High Dough and New Orleans is Sinking. The show sold out a while back and people were really into it.

For a bunch of the early songs, there was one guy whose whole job seemed to be microphone cord wrangler so that Hugh Dillon could run out into the crowd. Eventually they got him a wireless mic. Dillon ran right past us, brushing past me, then came back and was singing Low Rider about four feet from us. This was all very cool.

Fun time, would go again. And yet, I couldn’t help but feel they were overshadowed by SNAKEandtheCHAIN. I mean, I enjoyed the Headstones but I’ll remember SNAKEandtheCHAIN for years.

On the way out, we walked by someone who said that Hugh Dillon was a badass and that the Headstones would chew up SNAKEandtheCHAIN and spit them out. Which, really, is all you need to know. There’s a lesson there about being concise; one I will surely ignore.

SLCR #227: The Headstones (January 26, 2016)