SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Starlight Club, Waterloo, ON (November 5, 2005).
After a summer tour, the Rheostatics live site picks up again in November with this, the first of the last few shows the site has until 2007.
This recording was recently added by Soundmann. The quality is excellent, and the show is fantastic.
It opens with a tremendous version of “Saskatchewan.” Then Dave throws in some banter about driving through town and that Ottawa Street exit. He also comments that Kitchener has really let itself go.
We also find out that Martin is getting shocked by his microphone, which will happen periodically.
They play a really fun version of “Me and Stupid” with a rocking ending. Later the crowd is really into the “Hey hey ho ho” ending of “Polar Bears and Trees.”
It also turns out that Ford Pier is helping out on keyboards tonight (although he seems kind of shy about it).
Tim seems to be having a slightly off night, though. His vocals on “Marginalized” make him sound a little under the weather, and he is really creaking on “Here Comes the Image.” And in “P.I.N.” he forgets to play the opening bass note after Martin’s guitar, and they all kind of lose it for a bit. They seem to be laughing and there’s no words until the second verse.
At the end of “Image” someone in the band asks “Michael” to tell us a story about the end of the world (he doesn’t).
At the end of “Jesus was Once a teenager Too” Martin gets a shock and walks off. Someone comments that in the past “every time we gave Martin an electric shock we’d give him a cigarette.”
Despite Tim’s poorer vocals earlier, they sound great for “Claire” and it is one of the best versions of this song ever.
“Stolen Car” is also great (Martin gets shocked again) it’s a long version with a lengthy jammy section and a noodly keyboard solo. There’s even a really aggressive punky “drive away” section.
“Power Ballad for Ozzy Osbourne” features Tim on drums (!) and Ford on keyboards.
Then they bust into a lengthy version of “Feed Yourself” with Trevor (whoever that is) on lead vocals. It sounds weird with someone very unlike Dave singing. But I like when he modifies the line “Like a box a chocolates and a Beatles song. These are the things you can count on” to “Like a box a chocolates and a Rheos song. These are the things you can count on.” There’s a long jam in this song too. And the end of the song sort of morphs into “Record Body Count” with Martin singing the new song while the old song is still in place. The band doesn’t really catch up until the 2nd verse.
Before the encore they talk about their upcoming ten night run at the Horseshoe. But don’t come on Tuesdays since Tuesdays are free the band only gives 65%. The encore features “This Song Ain’t Any Good” which Bidiniband will record later. “Self Serve Gas Station also has an interesting jam at the end.
For the last few songs, they play a really punky version of “Rock Death America”with a verse of Surrender thrown in for good measure. And they end with “Four Little Songs” Paul McLeod comes out for a little song and winds up singing the Rheos’ old song “Crescent Moon.”
What a great show.
[READ: September 7, 2015] “Montana Border”
I don’t often read stories about fighters, but I find that when I do, I rather like them.
This story was really interesting in its timelessness and almost placelessness. It could start anywhere, although it ends bear the Montana/Canada border.
Daniel earns his living by beating people up. He travels from town to town and gets into cage matches. They are a no holds barred, winner by knockout kind of deal. And he is really good at it. He’s not that big, but he is scrappy and he has only lost one fight. Well, he is 12-1 in official fights but he has won many other, less official ones.
Hardcastle has a great vocabulary for the fights. I like when Daniel hit his opponent who had “gone down like someone hit the off button and now he lay there limbstretched on the mat.”
He seems to get about $500 for a fight and then he gets the hell out of town (even if a free hotel room is included ).
Daniel sleeps in his truck although on one occasion (at a party where he drank heavily with the man he had beaten up earlier) he woke up stark naked with a woman’s arm draped over him.
His final fight of the year was on the Montana border at a farmhouse. He won, but was badly beaten up himself. The house vet did a little work on him, but he opted to not have the guy do much, and instead he crossed back home to Canada to get medical attention there. And that’s when he met Sarah, the red-haired nurse.
He fell for her immediately, and she seemed strangely charmed by him. Especially when a month later he traveled over two hours to go back to her hospital because “my foot hurts.”
And soon they were together.
He’d had some fights in the interim, but when he went back across the Montana border, he had a pretty big fight. So big, that the guy he beat sent some goons after him. And they followed him all the way to Canada.
What will Sarah think of this, and how will she react to his latest adventure.
There wasn’t a lot of detail in this story (well, there was in the fights, but not in their relationship) so , it was a little confusing what exactly she saw in him, but I suspect that wasn’t the point of the story.
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