SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Fall Nationals, Night 5 of 10, The Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto (November 15, 2004).
The Rheostatics, live at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, November 14, 2004. This was the 5th night of their 10 night Fall Nationals run at the Horseshoe.
Most of the shows they played a lot of the same songs, but this one has a lot of unique shows for this Fall Nationals. About four or five that are only played tonight (and maybe on guest vocalist night).
The show begins with the only instance of “Onilley’s Strange Dream,” a long mellow jamming intro with Tim playing bass and Dave strumming while Martin plays some melodies and then begins the song properly. Its slow and quite pretty and it’s nice to hear. It’s followed by the crazy squealing guitar melody intro of “When Winter Come.” Martin has to play the whole intro three times as it seems like they’re messing with him. Mike says “that’s a big matzo ball hanging out there.” The band sounds great playing this (although lyrics are certainly messed up). Martin: “That was a memory test.” Dave: “Indeed, a middling grade.” Then Mike jokes: “That’s a nice shirt, Martin, did you and Selina go shopping at the same time?” You can hear them talking about Valu Village “There’s an umlaut over the U at the one in Yorkville.”
Then they play the only version of “Superdifficult.” It sounds great because Tim is certainly reliable. As evidenced by the greatness of “Marginalized,” too. “Polar Bears and Trees” is rocking and fun. And then he introduces the opening track from our new album, “Shack in the Cornfields.” As with many of these longer songs, each night’s show makes the song sound even better.
Even though I tend to like the sound quality of the Clarkson download, you can hear a lot of chatter in the background during the quiet parts. You also can’t hear the poem during “Try To Praise This Mutilated World.”
For “Pornography,” Dave plays a different opening, which is nice. And Chris Stringer is on the tambourine. Dave says that Chris should take a solo next time. On the tambourine? No the guitar. There’s some strange whooping in the crowd and Mike acknowledges the “pack of bonobo monkeys.” Then comes
“Who Is This Man, And Why Is He Laughing?” written by “Michael Alexander Wojewoda “a direct descendant of Czar Nicolas” and Jennifer Eveline Foster on the accordion. The song sounds wonderful with the accordion. You can hear Mike talking in Polish. It’s followed by the mellow “Here Comes The Image” with two keyboard solos full of synth trippiness.
For “Power Ballad For Ozzy Osbourne” they are going to play the intro this time. They sing it–Dave says he hasn’t sung it in so long. “I think you sing it higher.” They futz their way through it and then get to the main song.
Dave starts talking to the crowd after the song: “No I haven’t smoked weed in a long time. A little bit of hash every now and again.” Mike: “It’s like your shift from beer to Fine Scotch.” Dave: “But formerly lots of dope.” The crowd goes crazy. Dave: “oh, you like me, now.”
You can really hear the lyrics on “In This Town,” which gets two plays during the series, as does Christopher. You can hear Martin say “we haven’t played Christopher.” So they do. It’s kind of slow but Martin is really into it and he plays a cool echo-filled solo.
After yesterday’s karate discussion, there is no trouble during “Little Bird, Little Bird” and only one hoo and one ha. But the song is surprisingly intense for such a mellow piece. Dave thanks everyone for coming out on a Monday night. He talks merch an Martin gets mad because he sang the song with Dave’s book title, but he forgot to plug it. Dave says from now on he could sing “On a cold road {by Dave Bidini} somewhere in the south of Ontario.” Someone in the audience shouts, “Dave, your books are great.” Dave: “Thank you, ma’am, should not everybody have a copy?” Mike: “Shameless.” Martin: “I read your new book too. It was way more ambitious than I thought. You said it was just teaching kids how to play music.” Dave says he just pulled it out of his ass. Mike: “you just pulled that out of your ass? You’ve got a great ass!” Dave: “All the girls in Vancouver wanted to touch my bum. I wanted to ask Claudia if that was a trend. The band starts playing a jazzy riff: “Merch music!” It’s not like its going to be half off on Friday or Saturday because we want to get rid of it, It’s already half off. You know that place in Yorkville, Value Village with the umlaut over the u? It’s way better than that.
They finally get to “Fat” which has a lot so synth in the intro with staticky washes.
They leave for an encore break that’s about 2 and a half minutes of Martin’s guitar echoing.
When they come back Dave plays Memorial Day. Dave says they’re going to do a Rheostatics song from a long time ago that he was thinking about. We have people from America and we’ll play this for our American visitors. Someone shouts “Kill George Bush.” “Me? I’m not the man for that job.”
You hear people shouting requests. Dave says, “You’re not just reading song titles off the CDs over there?” The guy retorts, “Don’t make me say ‘Claire.'”
Then comes the only “Shaved Head” of the run. It’s suitably slow and intense. The slow twinkling guitar at the end segues perfectly into “One More Colour” which totally rocks. There’s no coda ending on it, it’s just done and so are they.
The End.
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