Keeps Me Alive

This concert really came about 15 years too late. In high school, I was a big fan of Stone Temple Pilots. I dare say they were my favourite band for a time; specifically the time around the summer of 1994. I credit this mostly to "Purple," their second album. I can't honestly say that I skipped class to buy the CD on the day it came out, but I did make productive use of a Christian Ethics (!) class that had theoretically been devoted to working on a group project. I played the heck out of that CD; or, rather, a tape I made of it that I left in the car for months until the tape deck ate it in order to force some variety into my musical diet.

And then "Tiny Music... Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop" came out. I am fine with that album now, but at the time, we did not get along. I don't know what I thought I'd be getting but that wasn't it. It turned me off the group in a major way for a while. Clearly, Scott Weiland was devastated by my wavering fandom and turned to drugs to soothe the pain. Lots and lots of drugs.

Combine the notorious drug issues with the on-again off-again status of STP, Weiland's solo career, and Velvet Revolver, and we were pretty sure that this show would never happen, and if it did, it would suck. One friend of mine saw Stone Temple Pilots in Quebec a year or so ago and walked out halfway through. Another was backstage for a Velvet Revolver concert and saw them delay the show for an hour in hopes that Weiland would come down enough to be able to perform.

At first, we'd figured that Weiland's bad reputation had followed them to their show at the Agridome. The tickets said the show would start at 7:00; when we arrived at 6:30, the doors were open and there was barely anyone inside. I knew they'd released a big block of discounted tickets earlier in the week, but this was looking mighty grim - worse than I expected.

I sent Jeff a text, asking if he was going to (or was at) the show. He replied that he was already there, and also commented on the lack of any sort of crowd. The sparse attendance was especially surprising because there were no seats on the floor - it was nice and open for everyone to rush the stage, and, well, no rushing was required. Jeff was right up at the front, easily visible because there was maybe a total of two dozen people down there.

As it turned out, I needn't have asked Jeff if he was going; he'd already updated Twitter to say that he would be there. Specifically, he said "Going to see STP tonight. According to Wikipedia, Scott Weiland is not dead as of this moment, so that's encouraging."

Being older and more feeble than Jeff, Mika, Dave, and I had actual seats. Before parking ourselves in them, we roamed around the Agridome, past the t-shirt stands and beer vendors that were not doing the business that they would have hoped for. The most bored looking employees were manning the ice cream stand, causing us all to wonder if anyone actually buys ice cream at a rock show. Over the course of the evening, we counted two people. They both opted for chocolate, if you were wondering.

At 6:59 - one minute early! - the lights dimmed and the voice of God boomed throughout the arena.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN..."

Dave: "...the show has been cancelled."

"...IT IS TIME FOR THE CRASH KINGS."

The few people in attendance made no noise whatsoever.

In the seconds before they started playing, a girl standing behind us said that Crash Kings sounded like a cross between Led Zeppelin and All-American Rejects. I must confess that this description sounded ridiculous, but having now heard them, I can see where she was coming from. I'll let you decide for yourself whether this would be a good sound or not. I would rank them as being better than Something About An Elephant, the post-Xylon standard for crappy opening bands, but I do have to say that the best thing that they did was leave the stage. That sounds a little bit mean, I know, but, y'see... okay, so they played for about 40 minutes or so. They finished up a song - didn't end on a proverbial high note or anything - and noodled around for a few seconds as though they were preparing for the next song. Then the lead singer wandered back to his mic, said "okay, we're done" and they all walked off. It took the crowd a few seconds to realize that the set was, in fact over, and maybe some applause would be appropriate here.

By the time Crash Kings left, I'd say there were maybe 1,000 people in the arena. Probably less. And I bet there were only around 500 or so when they started. Even with a third of the arena blocked off for the stage, there was probably room for 6,000 people in the building.

There was a nice long wait after the opening act. Dave ran down the list of reasons why this might have been:
- They can't find him
- They can't wake him up
- They're waiting for him to come down
- etc.

Eventually, the lights dimmed again, and, well, there's something to be said for low expectations. You're rarely disappointed and you're often pleasantly surprised, and this was quite the pleasant surprise. It wasn't a blow-away stage show; the band played in front of a giant screen that showed a few video clips (including one from Mad Max, for some reason) but mostly ran what looked to be a really big Windows Media Player visualizer. But I didn't care - the setlist was almost dead-on what 17-year-old me would have chosen and that made this show a huge success. They played almost everything from Purple, a bunch of songs of their first album, and almost nothing from beyond that - by my count, only one song each from "Tiny Music" and "No. 4" and nothing after those. I could see this being a letdown for a diehard STP fan, but it was about perfect for me.

If the music wasn't enough, you could always watch the security guards maul the crowdsurfers. This was sensationally entertaining. Dudes were not gentle. They'd reach out into the crowd four-deep, grab a limb, and yank for dear life. They were going to pull every crowdsurfer out, and if that was impossible, they were going to pull at least part of every crowdsurfer out. Back in my day, you only lost glasses; I bet someone in this crowd lost an arm.

And it wound up being a surprisingly large crowd when it was all said and done - I'd imagine they got close to 5,000 people in there. Stone Temple Pilots fans must not be an awfully punctual bunch - either that, or they just don't care about opening acts.

Joking aside, this was as good a STP show as you're going to get in 2009. Granted, my expectations were such that I didn't think the concert would even happen, but it wound up being just a flat-out great show. I'd like to think Weiland has cleaned himself up and they're back on track. It's a bit hard to believe that when he's on stage with three normal people (well, by comparison) and he's looking like a walking anti-drug PSA, but there's hope. Of course, that's the problem; do something well once, and people will start expecting quality instead of being surprised by it.

Yeah, so it's been a while. Again.

Fuck Your Pain Away

Our buddy Brian is the King of Mixes. He has a long history, going right back to the mix tapes of years and years ago. He spends hours on them, getting the mix just right. He always picks just enough bands I've heard of (but not always the usual tracks), and tons of bands I've never known existed. Where he finds all this stuff, I'll never know. These days, the internet must be helpful, but back in the day it must've been more difficult. Brian just attracts good music to him, somehow. And now he has computer technologies so he can even fade one song into the next, like a radio station, and he photoshops fancy covers to go with it all. It's very High Fidelity, and it's awesome because every so often I am privileged to receive a new mix from him.

During their recent visit here from the States, Brian brought several new mixes with him. Hooray! This first one is called Fuck Your Pain Away, after the first line of the first song, and it's a great mix. Rockin' indie-sounding mayhem that shifts into smooth reggae bliss and then back again. Loved it.

Track List:

Clicks - Complicated
Olympus Mons - Being God
Gossip - Fire With Fire
Against Me! - Don't Lose Touch
Eagles Of Death Metal - I Want You So Hard (Bad Boy News)
Magenta Lane - Daggers Out!
Tapes N' Tapes - Insistor
Kings Of Leon - Charmer
White Stripes - Little Cream Soda
Silver Sun Pickups - Lazy Eye
Clicks - Oh Yeah
Johnstones - No Time For The Moment
Zerolene - All Good
Aggrolites - Work It
Delroy Wilson - This Life Makes Me Wonder
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - Hold Tight
Detroit Cobras - Shout Bama Lama
Immaculate Machine - Jarhand
You Say Party! We Say Die! - You Dit It
Flogging Molly - If I Ever Leave This World Alive
Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah
Clicks - Cry Me A River
Noisettes - Don't Give Up
Chris Ligon - Crazy Daisy

That was awesome.

The Visit

Another mix from Brian, this one is very soulful, with tons of great tracks that groove and slide and gently hold your hand as it smoothly goes from song to song. Nice one in the car.

Track List:

Ray LaMontagne - You're The Best Thing
Rapheal Saddiq - Sure Hope You Meant It
John Legend - Slow Dance
Al Green - Take Your Time (f. Corinne Bailey Rae)
Emiliana Torrini - Heartstopper
Adele - First Love
Rocco DeLuca - Open Pages
Alexi Murdoch - Orange Sky
Brett Dennen - Desert Sunrise
Coco Rosie - Noah's Ark
Nizlopi - Helen
Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma
Ben Folds - You Don't Know Me (f. Regina Spektor)
Kooks - Naive
Pretenders - Breakin' The Concrete
Jill Sobule - Palm Springs
Decemberists - The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid
Loretta Lynn - Portland, Oregon (f. Jack White)
Andrew Bird - Fake Palindromes
Bob Dylan - One More Cup Of Coffee
Madeline - I Left The Light on

Lovely!

Jowi Taylor - Six String Nation

Charting the adventures of a guitar named Voyageur, which was made from many chunks of our collective nation, this book is fascinating. It has warmth, humour, intelligence and creativity - just like us. Well done, and recommended.

Reinhard Kleist - Johnny Cash: I See A Darkness

I was quite impressed by this graphic novel. The artwork is stark yet full, and the choice of black and white is fitting. The story is the one we all know already, with a bonus bit that you might not know about, told by a prisoner at Fulsom. We all love Cash. Bet he'd love that someone made him into a comic book.

Jack Johnson - En Concert

I have this thing about Jack Johnson's music. Although there's a fundamental punker part of me that resists it on some level, ultimately I always get into the groove pretty easily. This live record is beautifully recorded and the track-to-track mixing (each track recorded in a different place on tour) is seamless. It's a showcase of the talented musicians on stage, pure and simple, and a love-fest with Johnson's ardent fans. I will play this many, many times.

This is not the furthest I've traveled to see a show, but it's the furthest I've traveled specifically to see a show. We did some shopping while in Fargo, and when we told the store clerk that we'd driven 10 hours the day before to get there, her reaction, though unspoken, indicated that she wasn't about to be driving ten hours to visit our stinking city.

In my defense, I thought it was only an eight-hour drive (each way) when I bought the tickets. They must have moved Fargo a hundred miles or so since the last time I checked Google Maps.

So, why the trip? Apart from my fondness for fine American breakfast cereals and diet soft drinks, I've been trying to see Ben Folds in concert for close to 15 years, I figure. Not trying very hard, mind you - dude has never come very close to where I am, and I have never done the same for him. Though last year, Ben Folds Five was reuniting for one night only in North Carolina (a week before we were going there for a wedding), and I was awfully tempted to go to the show (and, accordingly, change my flight, take an extra week off work, get a hotel, rent a car, and buy tickets on eBay). Ultimately, this wasn't going to work out and I'm still a bit sad about that.

After a bored night spent poking around the web turned up a Ben Folds show in Fargo, I decided that this was likely as close as he was going to come to Regina, so I picked up a pair of tickets and convinced Mika to take a few days off work. Having done so, it's a lock that he'll announce his Canadian tour any day now.

I first heard Ben Folds Five many years ago on a CMJ magazine sampler CD. You don't hear a lot of piano in popular music these days (or at least I don't; I don't know what you listen to) and so that stuck out, as did the sense of humour in the lyrics. Many of Ben's songs showcase his wit (I'd say it's almost gone too far in that direction on recent albums), which makes it a little odd that Ben Folds Five's most famous song was a bleak little number about a teenage abortion gone wrong. True story: I once put that song on a CD for a (female) friend of mine, and someone else said I wouldn't put a slow piano song on a CD for a girl unless I was hitting on her. Chicks dig songs about abortions, I guess?

Anyway. With a ten-hour drive to make to a concert with a suspiciously early start time (doors at 6:00, show at 6:30), we decided that the best course of action would be to head out the day before the show. Before leaving, we double-checked a few items: passports, concert tickets, and the credit card used to book the hotel room. I figured anything else could be replaced en route if need be. The long drive went by oddly quickly and we soon found ourselves in Fargo's finest Super 8. They have free waffles!

My newfound (and Albert-mandated) BFF Jeff is also from Regina, but was planning on making the drive down with his friend Mandi on the day of the show. That day, Mika and I were walking around the Fargo mall at noon, when my BlackBerry buzzed. I have kept this conversation open in the chat program for over a week because I want to make sure I quote it verbatim:

Jeff: Oh my god I am dumb as fuck
Jeff: I'm outside of Winnipeg and just realized I didn't bring my bags
Jeff: Which included my passport
Jeff: What are the odds they'll accept a sob story?
James: Ohhhhhhh shit.

For non-locals, Winnipeg is about six hours from Regina and four hours from Fargo. The concert was about six hours away. There would be no turning back. I tried to sound as reassuring as I could that mayyyyybe if he had lots of other ID and got a sympathetic border guard, he'd make it. Secretly, I held out no hope. I don't know if I've ever seen Mika's face looking as sad as when I showed her the chat window. "I would be SO mad at myself," she said. I agreed, and we decided that Jeff didn't have a prayer.

Two hours later, the text message came: "Safely across the border :)" It was a Christmas miracle. Jeff and Mandi even beat us to the venue named The Venue.

Let me say a few words about the venue named The Venue. It is what The Odeon wishes it was. It holds a lot of people, has an upper balcony, the temperature is reasonable, there are seats around the edge, the sound is really good, it's clean, and the people are nice. The doors opened precisely when they said and the show ran on time. I would rather drive 10 hours to Fargo to see a show than drive two hours to the Odeon. Having said that, Mika wouldn't let me drive back this weekend for Queensryche.

Mika and I had our tickets mailed to us, while Jeff and Mandi's tickets were at the will-call. As Jeff was getting his tickets, Mika and I went inside, but before we got to the stage, I said "maybe we should wait back here, just in case there's a problem." Jeff caught up with us, laughing. "I told them my name and they said I wasn't on the list. And then they told me to just walk in." For serious. This dude also lost his WWE tickets in August and still got into the arena somehow. I do not know how he does it, but the world does not work this way for anyone else. I must find a way to harness this power for my own benefit.

The opening act - who took the stage precisely at 6:30, as promised, was Kate Miller-Heidke. I can't say I knew anything about her, and wasn't expecting the Australian accent. I definitely wasn't expecting the brief operatic blasts in otherwise traditional guitar-and-vocal songs (or during her cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic"). Ben Folds later said that she currently had the #1 album in Australia, and Wikipedia suggests that there was some truth to this. I suppose Folds has spent a lot of time in Australia, and her sense of humour would seem to match his. Later on, she would come back on stage to pose for pictures simulating an on-stage meltdown. She also dueted on You Don't Know Me, but that's probably less interesting to the Australian media. At any rate, she fell into the "pleasant surprises" category of opening acts.

I'd heard a few Ben Folds concerts over time - both the official live releases and a few bootlegs - and the crowds always seemed to really be into the shows. I had always assumed these were fortuitous recordings, but having now experienced this in person, I have to wonder if maybe it's like this every time out. Not only did people sing along with every song, even the relatively obscure ones, but they called out requests for songs that I hadn't even heard of. From what I can tell, Ben Folds tours a lot - but I guess not around here, so maybe there was an abnormally high number of die-hards in attendance. This dude named Matt started talking to us, and he mentioned that he was there with a group of people who had driven 13 hours from Missoula, Montana, so we hadn't traveled the furthest for the show.

Really, the show was pretty much exactly what I had been led to expect, and that's not a bad thing at all. The crowd was rabid, Ben beat the hell out of his piano, there was a lot of interaction with the audience, and the setlist was varied (and felt a lot like it was being made up on the fly; if Folds did come through this way, I'd think about seeing two shows in two days because there might be some variation there). We got a Fargo-centric version of Rock This Bitch (which gets new music and lyrics every night) about Subway restaurants, a building that had been covered in bras, and Fargo the movie (this was the only reference to the movie during the entire weekend; I'd imagine the residents of Fargo are sick of the "oh yah, real good yah" jokes, and having just recently rewatched the movie in preparation for the trip, I was surprised to see that Fargo isn't really in the movie in any substantial way; also, I like semi-colons and dragging sentences on forever when I get on a roll).

The set included most of the songs I wanted to hear, and were taken from all along Ben's career. I'd list them, but that sounds like it would be boring for all of us. Most of the songs were faster ones - no Brick to be found to bring the party down - though there was a slower number he'd co-written with Nick Hornby. The album is coming out sometime next year, he said. Also, as was done on the live album (or maybe the bootleg, who can remember), the crowd sang harmonies on Not The Same and imitated the horn section on Army. Hiro's Song was played entirely on this... box... thing. It had a name. I don't remember what it was. It was neat.

The all-too-brief encore was kicked off with Bitches Ain't Shit, a Dr. Dre song which Ben covered and turned into a slow piano ballad. He's retired the song because he didn't want to be known for what is, essentially, a novelty cover, but he seems to unretire it whenever he feels like it. To help him along, he pulled a few fans from the crowd, one of who was our new friend Matt who, I have to say, completely nailed it. And maybe I should list a few more songs he played - Effington, Boxing, One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces, Free Coffee, Annie Waits, Zak and Sara, All U Can Eat, Kate, Jesusland - just to drive down the ratio of songs with "Bitch" in the title.

All in all, a fantastic show. The live albums do a respectable job of capturing the experience, but being there was much more fun. I had said that I used to be more of a Ben Folds fan in the past, but seeing the show brought it all back. Five stars, and probably the best show I'll see all year (though Wayne Newton always has a puncher's chance). It was so good that I wasn't even fixated on the early ending time like my old-ass self usually is, though I did enjoy the dinner we had after the show, and I assume Jeff enjoyed his cart full of crazy American Cheetos.

UPCOMING SHOWS
 - Nov. 14: Stone Temple Pilots
 - Dec. 15: Wayne Newton

Collective Soul and I, we have a history. I liked them in 1994 or thereabouts when they first broke through, then we went our separate ways, and now I finally got the chance to see them.

Unfortunately, I told this whole story - using many more words, which was probably unnecessary - after I saw them in February 2008.

Since then, not much has changed between us. They put out a new album recently. I listened to it a few times. It was fine. I'm listening to it now, in fact. But there isn't necessarily a lot to talk about.

I mentioned last time that Collective Soul has some kind of strange grip on Saskatoon. No matter how they're doing anywhere else, Saskatoon is a near-instant sellout. Well, I have since discovered that they have a grip on the whole province. This show sold out in short order and I was surprised by the number of people I work with who were sad that they didn't buy tickets in time.

I had no such problems because Dave likes Collective Soul an awful lot and he bought tickets within minutes of the concert being announced. This may have been a tactical mistake on his part, given that a Saskatoon show was only a few days away from being announced. Going to that show instead would have saved him two highway drives (and possibly one windshield, but that may have been fate).

But hey - he did make the drive to Regina, and that gave him the opportunity to bring (and sell) me a big TV. Of course, that also meant that I made him help me get rid of my old tube TVs, pick out a new TV stand, take the new stand home, take everything off my old stand, put the new stand together, load everything onto the new stand, and take the old stand apart and haul it away. And when I say "I made him help me," I really mean that I made him do almost everything until such time as I put my back out; from that point on, there was no almost about it. High-five for helping!

My back was actually bad enough that for a brief moment, I was concerned that I wouldn't even make it to the show. I spent about five minutes on one knee trying to psych myself into standing up because I figured I could walk it off if only I could make myself upright. I finally latched onto my phone and discovered, sadly, that I couldn't get into the chiropractor's until the next day. With no alternative, I downed a few Robaxacets and grabbed my handheld back massager thing, which is basically a plastic triangle with three nubs on it. I massaged the affected area (affectionately known as "the upper butt") until I was merely uncomfortable. I was amazed that this worked out as well as it did. I'm sure that it looked suspicious that I was miraculously cured as soon as the last of the TV stand construction was completed.

We got to the casino, ran into one of my coworkers and his family, and took our seats. The casino has table seating and balcony seating, and we wound up with two tickets at a table, which meant that we would be joined by two mystery people. They turned out to be a couple of folks who seemed nice and we really didn't talk to them at all.

Having skipped supper, we ordered nachos before the show in a move that harkened back to the chicken fingers and mozza sticks of days of yore. I am kind of sad they didn't have chicken fingers, actually. The nachos were fine but you know how you normally run out of toppings and you're left with bare chips? This was the reverse, which normally would be awesome, but I think I just wanted chips and salsa. I didn't even finish my half, and I got through more than Dave did.

So, let's talk about Collective Soul, seeing as how there was no opening act apart from a few radio DJs that walked out on stage, said that Collective Soul would be coming out soon, and left. I don't know if this happens at every Collective Soul show, but it has happened at all two shows of theirs that I've seen, so I can only assume it's in their contract. They want a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown ones removed, and three radio DJs (possibly with all the brown ones removed - I really don't recall what they looked like).

Say what you will about a band whose biggest hits came over a decade ago, but they made it sound like it wasn't a common occurrence to play at a casino in front of a sedately seated crowd. This crowd did not stay seated for very long, though. There were more new songs played than I would have expected - when a band has been around this long, I expect their shows to be glorified greatest-hits collections - and even said new songs were loved. They got a standing ovation only a few songs in, and when they played Shine, they got a reaction that I can only describe as ridiculous. Dave later said that they should have closed the show with it, and I agree - there was nothing they could have played that could have followed that. Still, the entire second half of the show had people up and dancing in front of the stage.

It also had some dude yelling into the lead singer's mic while he was introducing the band, which was kind of awesome. "You see, dude, I have ears on, and you just deafed me. Is that a word?"

As an aside related to both Shine and hollering, thanks to the Bryan and Vinny Show, I can no longer hear Shine without mentally inserting the Great Khali. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH. This made me laugh out loud while they were playing the song and I'm glad nobody asked for an explanation. Dave would have understood but I don't think anyone else on Earth would have.

So yeah, people liked the new songs, people liked the old hits - and they played most of the ones that I could think of, save for Precious Declaration - people liked pretty much everything, and that always makes for a great atmosphere. By the end of the show, I was even willing to overlook the lead singer's questionable blouse-and-scarf combo. I guess you can get away with such things if you're a rock star.

All told, this was a much better show than the last time, and that one exceeded my expectations. I can honestly say that I won't run out and buy tickets the next time they come to town, but that shouldn't be taken as a critique of the band, just an observation that I have Dave to do that for me. He's like my personal shopper when it comes to concerts that he wants to see. Besides, I might need some more furniture put together by then.

UPCOMING SHOWS
- Oct. 23: Ben Folds (w/Kate Miller-Heidke)
- Oct. 29: Def Leppard (w/Cheap Trick & Man Raze)  canceled
- Nov. 14: Stone Temple Pilots
- Dec. 15: Wayne Newton

Y'all need to get yourselves on over to www.sloanmusic.com and sign up (or update) your email subscription to Sloan's newsletter so you can download their new single for FREE!

Go! Go! GO! NOW!

Tell 'em the KMA sent you...