SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Evolve Festival Antigonish, NS (August 28, 2004).
The Rheostatics do a lot of festivals, and they always seem to have a good time. But it also means a shorter set. Unlike yesterday’s Nova Scotia show, this one doesn’t focus on new music too much (although they mention that 2067 is coming out Oct 5).
The sound quality isn’t great in this show either–there’s a lot of rumbling which sounds like winds, but who knows.
But they are even more charming in this setting. Dave compliments someone one on their excellent sign and says that the sign demographic has let everyone down for this show–so her request will be honored.
The show starts with a cool jam from the Whale Music soundtrack (mostly “Song of Flight”). When they play “Four Little Songs” one of the verses is a verse from Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain.”
Later they play a great version of “Saskatchewan” and perennial festival mates Chris Brown and Kate Fenner are there to help. During “Stolen Car” they sing a few lines from “Another Brick in the Wall Pt 2.”
There’s great versions of “California Dreamline” and “Claire.” The show ends with the new song “Power Ballad for Ozzy Osbourne” and there’s a breakdown during the song (no way to know what happened, but they have a laugh about it).
You can see photos from the day here (although none of the Rheostatics).
[READ: July 21, 2015] “The Freezer Chest”
I found Nors’ previous story to be a little odd. And so I find this one. There’s something about the way it was written (or translated) that I found it very stiff to read. It is also told in a flashback which is later revealed to be a very-long-ago flashback.
What is particularly strange about the story is that the “action” of the freezer chest is all of about three paragraphs. And while the story isn’t long overall, it takes a circuitous route to get to that part.
The narrator is a young girl, Mette. She is on a boat with her classmates and their English teacher. Mark is also part of the group and he has made it clear that he does not like the narrator (that happened in a previous instance). The crux is that Mark claimed to be an amazing guitarist. And he is trying to get the narrator to respond to this information. She genuinely does not care although she says she believes him.
Then he offers his explanation of why he his no longer amazing. Again, she says she believes him but could care less.
This all proves to be more mean-spirited heckling of the narrator, and even her supposed friend doesn’t do anything to save her reputation.
So she challenges Mark to see who can get better grades that semester.
There’s also a teased out incest plotline, just to make it all the more surreal. It just felt like it was missing substance.
The story was translated by Misha Hoekstra
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