SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Scotiabank Saddledome, Calgary AB (November 16, 1996).
This is the 7th night of the 24 date Canadian Tour opening for The Tragically Hip on their Trouble At The Henhouse Tour. These are the only recordings of “Queer,” “Soul Glue” and “Introducing Happiness” from the tour.
The opening music tonight is “Good Times” by Chic. Which seems odd. After a quick “hello,” Martin begins playing “A Midwinter Night’s Dream.” The sound quality of this recording is excellent (as the others are) and this version is pretty outstanding.
Dave says “We’re very nervous. This is very big place. We’re very purple. We’ll do 8 songs tonight and then the Tragically Hip will play. We’re playing across the country with them and eating all their doughnuts.
“Bad Time to Be Poor” is dedicated to Gord. It’s another Tim two-fer with “Introducing Happiness” which is “for my cats.”
Up next, Dave introduces “a song about being gay and playing hockey.” “Queer” sounds great and the band is really into it. It’s followed by a bouncy and fun “Soul Glue” (three from Tim!) with a grooving solo from Martin. “Soul Glue is such an underrated gem. I love the way the middle section is chaotic with the three singers singing different parts and then it segues into the great harmonies of the final “ooooh” section.
Dave jokes: “Hey, Martin, if you’re gonna play stadiums you need to know how to flick the pick.” Then Dave gives a big shout out to Recordland on 9th: “the greatest record store in the celestial universe.” And it’s still in business in 2019!
The guys don’t banter too much as openers, but they have this exchange about the people down front:
DB: They’re having too much fun.
MT: Is there such a thing?
DB: Yes as you know first hand.
DB: Does everyone wanna party? [crowd roars] I was afraid you’d say that.
MT: Well, this song is a real downer.
It’s “Sweet Rich Beautiful Mine” which sounds great with some really interesting chaotic parts in the middle–Martin seems to be either having fun or going a little crazy with the sounds and soaring vocals and lots of growled “rich”s.
Feed Yourself starts out really weird (a missing guitar maybe). After a verse or so it sounds fuller. The middle has no crazy chanting, but when the middle slow part end, it roars back. It segues instantly into “California Dreamlike.” When he sings “disillusioned porpoise,” the guitar sounds kind of dolphin-y. The crowd is totally into them by this point.
They end the show with “RDA.” Martin seems to start it twice then re-tunes and the blast through it properly.
Although a long rambling Rheostatics show is a thing of beauty, these short sets are pretty spectacular–like a great short story.
[READ: February 21, 2019] Quirk’s Quest 2
I had the exact same reaction from book one as I did for this book. About Book One I said:
This story threw out so much disconnect for me that I never really determined if I liked it.
The artwork is adorable–the characters look like Fraggle Rock creatures–soft and furry with big round ping pong ball eyes. Even the bad guys (much taller with four eyes) don’t look all that fierce.
And yet.
In the first 30 pages, these monsters kill and eat some of the cute Fraggle Rock creatures. What?!
This book looks ostensibly like a children’s book. It is really cute. But the diary entries of the Captain are written in a cursive that even I had a hard time reading (particularly because the captain’s named is Quenterindy Quirk and he is sailing on the H.M.S. Gwaniimander (hard enough to read that, imagine trying to figure it out in cursive!).
The cursive is still there (they name a river “Mabooglaqui” in cursive), and while there’s less death in the beginning of book two, there is a fairly astonishing scene where a creature eats smalls creatures and is then blown to bits (somehow adorably).
It’s Day 18 of their trip. They are taken in by the Yoons. They capture a loud scary beast names a Roxxann (what?). Then we learn about the Zeep, a race of people run by Lanitee the priestess. There’s also a race of Meemoo (oh come on). Lanitee has joined Quirk’s mission to learn more than she can just from books.
A scouting mission discovers a woman who looks just like Hukka. It proves to be Hukka’s sister Xulda. She is very nice and (possibly) less crazy than Hukka. Turns out that the guy they thought died in the last book, Sorrillius the obnoxious chef, was not killed. He tells an amusingly over the top story.
Eventually Xulda contacts Hukka to figure out what’s going on and then Hukka materializes in front of them and she’s still on about her Hekpa (and believes that one of Quirk’s team is her Hekpa).
Meanwhile in the middle of the island, our heroes are wandering around and are captured by the lost Tribe of Keldorra. The Lost Tribe needs to kill these intruders for finding them. Although as Quirk points out, they wouldn’t have found them if the Keldorra hadn’t captured them. Quirk acts like a pompous jerk with them and so they imprison the whole team. They do wish to speak to Priestess Lanitee.
She learns that Hukka and Xulda have another sister. Because they were not purebred they were banished from the kingdom. But when she was older, Hukka came to them for help. They felt they could not turn her away since she was part of their tribe, And that’s where she met a Kelodrran guard named… Hekpa.
There is a huge battle at the end started by Hukka. Many are killed (with magic so it’s not grisly) including Hukka. And then Zuppa shows up, enraged that Hukka has been killed. She makes some beloved characters disappear (they are not killed, just imprisoned) and then brings the whole hidden kingdom crashing down.
Everyone seems to escape but there is obviously a lot more to this story.
Once again the end was pretty exciting, but there’s so many things about this story that drive me nuts that I just can’t get into it as much as I’d like. But again it just feels like a children’s story written for older kids or vice versa. But the drawings (by Deborah Lang) sure are cute. #10yearsof01
I Just Read About That... 
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