SOUNDTRACK: SLOAN-Live at Massey Hall (September 11, 2015).
Having now seen Sloan twice, it’s nice to compare this earlier show with mine. And I get to say that my shows were longer! Much longer.
This edited for the web version leaves out 11 songs (including the ones which drummer Andrew Scott sings on–so there’s no switching instruments). Having said that, the band sounds great and the set list is really strong. I also had no idea that Gregory MacDonald had been touring with them for that long.
Jay Ferguson compares Massey Hall to Carnegie Hall and then regrets comparing something Canadian to something American). Chris Murphy says “I don’t often use the word “hallowed,” but it is a “hallowed hall.”
He continues, “We are quite loud, we wondered, Do we try to tailor our set for Massey Hall–more like a theater set of songs? We didn’t do that essentially because we’re incapable: everybody turn down and then its like a volume war everybody turning up until we’re as loud as ever.”
They start with a great Jay song “You’ve Got a Lot on Your Mind.” The band sounds great although the dominance of keyboards from Greg is surprising as the first song.
Introducing “The Rest of My Life,” Chris says, “You don’t have to stand but… sing along please. Of course everyone sings “I know that I’ll be living it in Canada.” As the song rings out, Chris starts a clap which segues into Patrick singing “Ill Placed Trust.”
Chris says, “We never got giant but we enjoy an audience that has followed us for a long time. Thank you.”
The start the great guitar riff on the dark “The Other Man.” There’s lots of sing-alongs in this one, too.
Jay is back with the super catchy “Who Taught You to Live Like That.” And as the song fades out the siren roars the intro for “Money City Manis.” Chris notes, “You actually have to stand up for this one. You have to.”
Patrick and Chris take turns on lead vocals and then during the instrumental break Chris calls a six-year-old girl up on stage who dances, plays the tambourine and knows all the words. Patrick says, “like I’m gonna be able to solo over that–that’s the solo right there.” Chris wonders, “When you look at this stage, where does your eye go?” She is amazingly self-possessed.
They end with the obvious–but a wonderful obviousness with “Underwhelmed.” They (and the audience) have a ripping time of it.
It’s interesting just how long the band played in reality. But yes, even after all this time, Sloan is a dynamic live act. And this is great proof of that.
- O Canada
- Deeper Than Beauty
- If It Feels Good Do It
- C’mon C’mon (We’re Gonna Get It Started)
- Carried Away
- Keep Swinging (Downtown)
- Snowsuit Sound
- Fading Into Obscurity
- Forty-Eight Portraits
- Unkind
- You’ve Got a Lot on Your Mind
- The Rest of My Life
- Ill Placed Trust
- The Other Man
- Who Taught You to Live Like That
- Money City Maniacs
- encore
- People of the Sky
- Underwhelmed
[READ: May 10, 2018] “Dinner Party”
This is an excerpt from a novel Kudos. It being an excerpt does explain some of the sparseness, but it feels like such a unique event that I can’t imagine even who the main character is supposed to be involved with in previous and future pages.
A writer enters a restaurant. She is at a writing conference and she and the other delegates are to be treated to dinner. I love this line “The delegates were reluctant to [sit], knowing their fate would thus be settled for the duration of the meal.”
The narrator recognized a woman from an all-female panel discussion who recognized her and instantly came over to talk to her. The woman introduced herself “with the pragmatic directness of someone who accepts rather than fears the likelihood of such things being forgotten.”
This woman, Sophia, immediately grabbed a man, Luis, who had been siting by himself and made him sit with them. She lauds Luis’s writing and praises his honesty although she says “if he were a woman…he would be scorned for his honestly or at the very least no one would care.”
The waiters brought the dishes. The first course was a brown puree which Sophia describes as “the parts no one would eat otherwise.” Hardly anyone ate.
Then a Welsh author came to the table. He explained that he had gone for a walk and had gotten lost. He wound up in some kind of prison area and had to explain what he was doing there. He ate the food with gusto.
They spoke of the novels they were writing. The Welsh man said that he was writing a novel about the elderly of Wales, one of who said “nothing remained of the world she knew, not one blade of grass was the same.”
Luis told of a ritual his mother told him about when she was young. The village would plow the fields but the final field they would plow in an every-decreasing circle. When the circle was small enough, the children would be given shovels. They would go into the circle and kill all of the animals who were hiding in there.
The final meal came, an oily fish stew, no one ate it except for the Welshman.
During this course Luis talks about his son, that he has become a rather lazy boy and Sophia lashes into him saying that he can’t let the boy sit around. Children have to learn to survive hardship.
As the excerpt ends, the Welsh writer speculates to the narrator than Sophia was making a play for Luis.
Who can even imagine what characters would remain as the story goes forward.
I Just Read About That... 
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