SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Marine Midland Arena (November 26, 1996).
I’m not sure how many shows Rheostatics opened for The Tragically Hip, but there are quite a few of them available on Rheostatics Live. I’m also not exactly sure where the tour took these bands, but this show in Buffalo is the only live recording on the entire Rheostatics Live site that was recorded in the U.S.
It’s interesting how different the band sounds in an arena–not their playing, just the bigness of their music. The fans are clearly there for the Hip (you can hear lots of chanting of Hip! Hip! Hip!which is either obnoxious or fun, depending. But they get a good reaction at least on recording,
They opened the show to “ding dong the witch is dead” from the Wizard of Oz. There’s no graceful segue into the music, Martin just starts playing “A Midwinter Night’s Dream.”
This is a weird song (that I love). It’s 8 minutes long with many different parts and no real catchy melody at all. What a strange choice to play open an arena show as an opening act in the States.
In fact six of their eight songs comes from their new album. This makes sense, except that they have actual hits that they could have played for potential fans, right? Whatever, the show is great and the quality is mostly good. Occasionally there’s some audible talking by (obnoxious, presumably drunken) men over the quiet parts. But it’s not too bad.
They play a really good “Fat.” Then Dave introduces the band in this way:
We’re the Rheostatics from Toronto, Canada.
We’re B.T.O. from Red Deer, Alberta.
We’re The Spoons from Burlington, Ontario.
We are every Canadian band that ever was and some that haven’t even been born yet.
The play “Motorino” which is about a motorcycle or scooter and dedicated it I believe to Brad May, the Buffalo Sabres player.
Tamara Williamson joins them for “Sweet Rich Beautiful Mine.” She and Martin sound great together. It’s a bummer that during the quiet opening you can hear some meathead complaining about something–best not listen too closely to find out what. There’s some loud tussling but it subsides. The song has a great ending–although Martin doesn’t quite pull off the roaring guitar sound after the final Rich. Strangely, he breathes very heavily into the mic after the song.
Don says “So far all of these songs have been from our brand new record. And this next one is too. And I think the only place it’s available in the States is right here in the lobby.” They play a great “Bad Time to Be Poor” and I feel like Tim emphasizes the “don’t give a shit no more” line.
They finally play an older song with “Self-Serve Gas Station.” Before playing the final song Dave says “To all those people in the cheap seats, we can hear your cheers. We appreciate them.” The final song is “Fan Letter to Michael Jackson.” Way back when, this was the first song that I’d heard by them and I was instantly hooked. I had to wonder if the Buffalonians felt the same way. Although it’s interesting that instead of shouting “Michael” the first time around, Dave shouts “Triumph!”
During the verse, Dave says, “I see two angels with funny lights on their heads in the 11th row. It’s like some kind of dream or something.”
Rather than doing their cool dissonant harmony ending, they gently fade the song out. Its’ a very different ending and quite pretty.
It’s a solid 40 minutes of new material. I’m also intrigued to see that they played a different set almost entirely at each future show.
[READ: June 20, 2017] “Boat Trouble”
This is The Walrus‘ Summer Fiction Issue with new fiction & poetry from 6 writers in total. I won’t be reviewing the poetry, but I’ll be talking about the three short stories.
Stories in The Walrus have been on the dark side lately but while this one was a source or trouble for the characters, it was more dangerous than disheartening. Except for the fact that the main character was a woman who was stupid enough to get involved with a cocky know-it-all who almost got them killed (and, even worse, apparently stayed with him for a time after that).
She was a native of Georgian Bay and she met François, a Parisian, at a yoga retreat in the Bahamas. They maintained a long distance relationship and eventually she invited him out to the Bay. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 