moncton > saint john > halifax > moncton was the way it went. after a night of watching some kickass ryan, wilco, bruce, etc.. dvd's and some intense nlcs baseball... which i missed the ninth inning of (damn!)... and a day of lounging around reading, running some minor errands with sean, and generally just hanging out, we made our way to saint john for the first slip show of this little run, at neptunes.
2006-10-20
Neptunes
Saint John, NB
- 12:47 -
intro jam > Children of December
Even Rats
If One Of Us Should Fall
Airplane/Primitive
Get Me With Fuji
Suffocation Keep (w/ female vocals sample)
Poor Boy
The Original Blue Air >
Paper Birds
E: Baba O'Riley
- 2:16 -
thanks to dave for keepin' the setlist. the show was a rocker from the very beginning... i thought the opening intro to december's was up there with some of the best i've heard (see 08.07.05 later set, for example) - it was certainly beefy, as were a lot of the beginnings of tunes, i felt. they really had a deep sound to them when they came charging out of the gate. airplane/primitive was a monster. it felt very together. it was easy to tell that these guys have honed in on each other and this set of tunes, and airplane is a perfect example of that. it was neat to hear the vocal samples on suffocation keep... though, it's just making my mouth water more for the album. it was the first time i had heard the song with the featured vocals of Ua, their japanese pop-star friend. paper birds closed out the show and it was the other big winner on the night. i really love how the song is structured live, with the different ending and vocals, it's bouncy as hell. they did the who cover a lot better than i had heard on previous recordings, as well.. i thought it was pretty good, and no doubt they rocked it out.
partied the night away at god only knows where and ended up back at the hotel staring at the ceiling somewhere around quarter to 7, i think... damn hilton folk wouldnt give me a corkscrew to keep 'er goin'! not much sleep had that day, but we made a pitstop in moncton on the way to halifax for some relaxing and power naps. once we hit the road we made it in plenty of time to roll into westoby's and get ourselves some pizza and some pops before heading out to stage 9 for the golden dogs and raising the fawn.
i had missed the golden dogs 3 times in a span of about 6 weeks over a year ago now and hadnt since found myself an opportunity to see them again until this weeked - they were also playing as part of the halifax pop explosion on saturday night, and although it was a long time comin', it was certainly worth the wait. they play with so much energy, so much fervour, so much vigour, so much soul, so much sweat... a powerful live rock band to be sure. after they blew through their 45 minute set, which started with birdsong, and ended with Yeah!, and featured a lot of the new stuff in between, most notably for me "saints at the gates", we had to pick ourselves up off the floor, give ourselves a shake, splash some water and try to put ourselves back together again. we were baptised once more at the church of rock n roll, left disoriented, confused, and elated.
when sean told the guitar player in the band (not azzolini) that plaskett was there checking them out, he nearly shit himeself. apparently there was a suit from nonesuch as well, that sean talked to. he was doing his best promo to get people over to the attic to check out the slip at 1:45... seemingly the latest show in town. we did have enough time to check out a bit of raising the fawn, and i was a little so-so on them. they started out really strong, i loved the first or second tune... heavy bass driven, with a chunk, and some nice overlapping vocals.. it was a really cool song.. but after that i started to fade away... i wanted to get over to the attic for the slip, and after a half hour or so, we did.
2006-10-21
Halifax, NS
The Attic
- 1:55 -
Soft Machine
Even Rates
Airplane/Primitive
I Hate Love
Get Me With Fuji (w/ Brad playing a strat)
Paper Birds
Children of December (w/Brad climbing on amps, etc and crowd surfing)
E1: If One of Us Should Fall
E2: (What's So Funny 'bout) Peace Love and Understanding
- 3:16 -
thanks again to dave for the setlist and notes. man, i love late night slip shows. who remembers set 2 in hamilton 10.15.04, starting at last call and going till 3? this was a set reminiscient of that, balls out and rockin' with some super sweetness, and bringin 'em all together for the encore. we called the opener. we called the encore. we called the i hate love substitution. going down there for 2 shows i was pretty aware that i'd likely be getting basically 80% of the tunes x2, but i was also pretty excited to see that - to see what differences popped up, how tight they were... and they seemed very well prepared and very well rehearsed - they didnt seem like they had to find each other much, but rather that they were already locked in. very focussed on this night. i particularly loved the soft machine, airplane, and paper birds again. maybe one of my favourite moments of seeing rock n roll so far all these years was seeing the look on friedman's face to the crowds reaction to even rats, singing along to the "ooh ooh oooooh's", goin' like mad for the song - nice to see all the smiles and the gestures between him and the brothers, like "you guy's seein' this? holy shit!" kinda happiness... completely and totally deserved, kudos to the boys. the crowd really was eating it up all night... i'd venture it was about 500 strong packed into the bar, and i was way up close... some seriously rockin' kids that night.. dude's grabbin' each others faces to show how much they loved something.... i dunno... kids... but, hey, you know, cause and effect, right? the slip brought it hard, so thats what happens. get me with fuji was played with brad on strat, which i'd never seen before... it seemed to take on a bit of a different flavour, and gave way to a different sort of weirdness breakdown... i really dug it... and again, paper birds, the ending was fantastic.. crowd was eating it up and dancing like crazy, the band was so on point, i thought they were gonna wind it back up again. sean got ahold of the setlist after the show and the if one of us.. looks like it got moved down out of the set into the encore position... maybe they were feelin' the energy and didnt wanna bring it down any? either way, good call saving it for the encore, it worked really well. the crowd wasn't lettin' 'em leave, though, so they came back out and raged a costello cover on us... a common cover for them, but again, one that just hadnt been played at shows i've seen.
confusion with inebriated friends and a terrible cab situation in halifax kept us from getting to an afterparty for quite a while, but after arriving we realized that that was probably a-ok. we didnt stay long than tried to endure the cab situation one more time to get back to westo's. it was a long night, but we did manage to beat the sun, which on a night like that, was fine with me.
back to moncton in the afternoon on sunday, said goodbye to dave and spent the rest of the night watching guy terrifico and kenny rogers tear the cardinals to shreds. enough with the pine tar talk, alright? kenny fucked 'em up and if he gets a chance, he'll do it again. what an intense performance to watch - man, i love baseball!
as i finish this up, it's occurring to me now how much conviction and focus, emotion and intensity mean to me in the things i love. im a baseball guy, and i saw it again in game 7 of the nlcs and game 2 of the world series, and for a dude without cable who never gets to see the game played, i'll admit i was in my glory watching this shit go down. chavez in the 6th with that catch one pitch after randolph left perez in the game! holy bejesus!! rogers amped up like a kid in the biggest game of his life cruising through the 8th with a 2 hitter... why leyland opted for jones in the 9th i'll never understand. it makes no sense to take the best pitcher out of the game when he's pitching the best game! but it renewed some lost love in me, restored some type of faith in conviction. when i saw the slip playing with the stark focus and determination of their sound and what they were trying to create around them i thought that though this didnt sound like the band i first fell in love with, no doubt this was still the same band i love. i dont know if you could call it a renewal of faith because i never lost any, but it brought back something thats for sure.... i simply love the slip.
new album Eisenhower comes out on november 7th - do yourself a favour and grab a copy for yourself and someone you love. giftmas is coming.
