SOUNDTRACK: DAVE BIDINI—The Paramount Moncton, NB [audience & soundboard recordings] (July 29, 2007).
This final show has two different recordings at the Rheostaticslive site, an audience recording and a soundboard. The soundboard recording is cleaner and I suppose better, but the audience recording is a little more fun because you can hear the audience responding to Bidini’s comments and jokes.
For the reading he asks if people want London or Finland, and so he reads Finland. He reads the funny story about trying to get a cheap 30 pound flight to anywhere only to get hit with a huge fine for having too much stuff. The section ends with a funny moment when a Finnish audience member compliments him: Your voice is excellent! Dave is excited since that’s not something he hears to often. The man follows up with: “You pronounce English very well.”
He plays seven songs all on acoustic guitar. Three of the songs are Rheostatics classics: “Fat,” “Me and Stupid” and “My First Rock Show.” I feel like hearing “Me and Stupid” in this setting really let me get the lyrics better–I never really understood the middle section. All three songs sound good in this format.
The “solo” songs are the same four: “Song Ain’t Good,” “The List” “The Land is Wild” and “The Ballad of Zeke Roberts.”
While talking to the crowd he mentions seeing signs on the road: “Free PEI Spuds for Cheap Trick” and “Red Sox nation welcomes Aerosmith.” He mentioned them in the previous days’ show as well, but in this show it sounds like someone claims to have written them (or at least seen them) but we never learn what they are all about.
He sounds great and the audience is responsive. Of the three, I like this show the best.
[READ: November 10, 2015] Home and Away
My triumvirate of Bidini books ended with this one.
I had never heard of the Homeless World Cup (which is kind of the point of the book, that no one has). But as you can imagine, knowing that that’s what this book is about you can be prepared for a pretty sad book.
Bidini follows a small group (4 players, including one woman) of Canadian homeless soccer players as they travel to Australia to play in the 2008 Homeless World Cup.
We meet the four players on the Canadian team and learn all about how they became homeless (a variety of reasons, but drugs feature prominently). These people were able to get above their bad situation, most of them through the joy of playing soccer–a cheap game even for the homeless.
The Homeless World Cup gathers homeless players from around the world to play in small venues on a small pitch.
There were so many moments of desperation–especially when he talked about their pasts–that it’s a good thing Dave knew how to structure the book so there were some highs amid all of the lows which the players experience.
The Canadian team, having only four players, had to have some extra players rotate through their team (the games were 5 v. 5). So they often had goalies who they had just met.
Mostly the Canadian players played their hearts out. They were beaten up and battered by the end of their few games. And while they had some successes they really stood no chance of winning the tournament. Of course winning isn’t the point–the point is to do something wonderful, to travel and to break out of the cycle that these people were stuck in.
Because Dave has been to Russia, he is able to talk to the Russian team a bit. He also talks to some of the US players. And on a few occasions, he is able to talk to a few of the other foreign teams. In a surprise move, some players from war torn countries sought asylum in Australia because conditions were so bad at home.
As I said, this is a depressing, all too real, book. But Dave is able to wring some positive moments out of it. And the epilogue leaves us with hope for everyone.
You can learn more about the Homeless World Cup. And you can donate to Street Soccer USA (and learn a bit more about the game) or Street Soccer Canada.
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