another slip weekend

the long weekend this year brought another little 2 night Slip run to ontario, and for me it also marked the 4 year anniversary since i first saw them at come together in '03.

friday night in Toronto they played at the mod club, and i actually missed most of it, after missing a bus out of london, being on a late running train, and not anticipating that the band might start before 11. i got there around quarter to twelve and the doorman told me they were just about done... sure enough, i only caught the tail end of the set and the encore, moonlight mile, which was cool to see again. when they choose to, they do some great covers.

afterwards, we went over to the horseshoe to hook up with an old friend, and it turned out that Heavy Trash (the sadies w/ jon spencer) were playing to a sold out room... but, the sound at the front of the bar was great, and we chilled inside for a couple drinks and listened to the last couple songs and encore of that show, too.

saturday night in Hamilton was at the casbah and it was a show of shows. totally made up for missing most of the toronto gig.. this is probably mostly of out order, but the set looked something like this:

life in disguise
there's a lie
even rats
weight of solomon (new/alternate version)
airplane/primitive remix
get me with fuji
suffocation keep
heartbreaker (zeppelin cover)
soft machine
yellow medicine
wine and white soda
modern love (bowie cover)

encore:
74

the whole show was one big massive highlight, but for me, it was awesome to see 74, yellow medicine, and weight of solomon... 3 big tunes that i'd yet to see them do live. 74 had a bit of a different flavour, not being played with a banjo - more of a rocker - its been a favourite of mine for a long time and tends to take me back to a stretch of hwy 102 when i hear it, so i was pretty happy when they started it up for the encore.

weight of solomon and yellow medicine are old school classics, and to be honest, i've always kinda come from the camp that never really cared all that much how often they went to the back catalogue to pull some of these monsters out, BUT, i gotta say, after experiencing a yellow medicine live and in-person - yeah, i can see why people want them to reach back a little more often. it was incredible. andrew took a huge solo in the middle of it, and seeing the other guys reactions while he was hammering it out was priceless - brad cheerin' his brother on, marc lovin' it. talking to andrew after the gig he said he realized how much of an "i dont give a fuck" kinda song that is, and they totally displayed that attitude when they laid it on us.

the whole night they seemed to be having tons of fun. they looked really loose, and were obviously firing on all cylinders and knew it, which i think allowed for them to just lighten up and pour it on.

they tried out a techno kinda remix of airplane/primitive that came off really well - one thing i always appreciated about these guys was how different the same song could sound from night to night, and this was a great example of their creativity.

fuji and heartbreaker also featured some great shredding from brad.

i was trying to shoot in hamilton and i mostly wanted to catch their reactions to each others playing, but i was having a terrible time so i gave up to just enjoy the show they were putting on for us. i didnt shoot at all in toronto.

i also brought a couple first-timers to the shows, and after the hamilton show scully told me they renewed her faith in live music.. certainly, i know the feeling. it was that kinda show again from the boys.