SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-University of Calgary (September 5, 1992). 
This set is also them opening for Barenaked Ladies, just following the release of Whale Music. It comes four months after the previous show online and I love that the set is almost entirely different.
It opens with a slightly cut off “PROD.” I can’t believe they’d open with that. AS they pummel along, the song pauses and the band starts whispering “what are they gonna do? I don’t know.” Then they romp on.
Bidini says they have three records out. The first you can’t get, the second is called Melville and this is “Record Body Count.”
They’d been playing “Soul Glue” for a long time, this one sounds full and confident. Then they introduce “King of the Past,” as “a song about looking for Louis Reil’s grave site. You know who he is, right? Canada’s first and foremost anarchist.” It’s a gorgeous version.
When it’s over they announce “Timothy W. Vesely has picked up the accordion!” (Earlier Dave said that anyone who could guess Tim’s middle name would in a free T-shirt). They play a fun if silly version of “Whats Going On.”
“Legal Age Life” is a fun folky romp. They get very goofy at the end with everyone making funny sounds and then Clark shouting “everyone grunt like a seal.” Bidini asks “Is Preston Manning in the audience tonight?” Clark: “No fuckin way.” Near the end of the song they throw in the fine line “Eagleson ripped off Bobby Orr!”
Martin almost seems to sneak in “Triangles on the Wall.” This is a more upbeat and echoey version than the other live shows have. The end rocks out with some big drums.
As they preapre the final song, Bidini says, “We’re going to play one more song and then we are going to leave like sprites into the woods.” He asks if anyone knows “Horses” and if they wanna “sing Holy Mackinaws with us?” But they need more than 1–we need at least 3. The three “imposters” are named Skippy and His Gang of Fine Pert Gentlemen. They are told to behave until the chorus or “I’ll get Steve Page to sic ya.”
Then, back to the audience he says, “This is a song about Peter Pocklington and what a fucking asshole he is.” [Pocklington is perhaps best known as the owner of the Oilers and as the man who traded the rights to hockey’s greatest player, Wayne Gretzky, to the Los Angeles Kings]. The fans aren’t very vocal during the shouting, but the band sounds fanasttsic. Just a raging set. It segues into a blistering version of “Rock Death America.”
Not saying that they upstaged BNL at all, but that would be a hard opener to follow.
[READ: January 17, 2017] “The Quiet Car”
This is the story of a writer who had been granted a temporary teaching job at a prestigious University. I don’t exactly know Oates’ history with Princeton, so I don’t know if she was ever in the same position as the character of this story, but I was secretly pleased when she mentioned the Institute of Advanced Study, so that it was obvious that the prestigious University was indeed Princeton.
But the story starts many years after he has left the University. R— is standing on a train platform. The story begins with this excellent observation: “nowhere are we so exposed, so vulnerable, as on an elevated platform at a suburban train depot.”
While R– is standing on the platform waiting for the train to New York City he notices that someone is unmistakably looking at him. He has been recognized before–there’s a small subset of the population who really likes his books. And, in what is a wonderful detail that tells you a lot about this man: “if the stranger is reasonably attractive, whether female or male, of some possible interest to R—, he may smile and acknowledge the recognition.”
This detail proves important because as he gets on the train he begins to think about the stranger–he believes he recognized her face. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 