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The joke died when you exploded
Apr. 2nd, 2007 11:59 pm
Currently at Toronto Pearson: 5. High today: 12. Winter encore coming just in time for us to leave town, and leaving just in time for us to come back.
As it turned out, I saw all three shows of Rheostatics Farewell Week. I wasn't going to bother going to the Horseshoe, because I was so annoyed with the Queen West jerkasses the last time I went there for Fall Nationals, a few years ago. (Though I did have my moment of satisfaction when they did "In This Town" as an encore: "All the idiots who're talking don't know anything at all.") The jerkasses didn't fail to disappoint--actually, this was a new record for jerkassity--but still, I shouldn't've missed it for the world. One last shot of the Rheostatics in their natural habitat before the general weirdness of Massey Hall, with its seats made for 19th-century knees.
L. has been attempting to evangelize her parents, but this is a hard band to get into. You hear that they're "weird" or "experimental", but that isn't really it. If you hear those sorts of things and then you hear a few songs, you might wonder what the fuss is about--seems like pretty plain rock music, a lot of it. (Especially the two songs that got much radio play--two Tim Vesley songs, ironically and understandably.) A little rough around the edges. Listen to a bit more and the next thing is that you realize these guys are pretty goofy. My first thought about the Rheostatics, in 1994, about Introducing Happiness, was something much like: these guys would be pretty good if they weren't so goofy.
They are in their element live, no doubt about it. I first saw them in something like the spring of 1995, in Clark Hall Pub, at Queen's. There was a guy calling for "Saskatchewan" all night--I assumed he was from Saskatchewan, since a lot of Queen's students were from all over the country. He may have been, but--it took me years, and then finally that song grabbed me by the back of the throat. I mean, it took me until just a few years ago. "I could not fire, and I don't know why. Then I knew the truth. I felt I got what I deserved." (I don't know why that shouldn't have grabbed me sooner, but this is where it's good to be a bit slow on the uptake--there's always more left.) That was the first song they played at Massey Hall.
Anyway--I don't know whether I would've loved them so much so soon if I hadn't seen them so early on, though I was already the one who was going to stay at Clark and see them with hell and high waters rising around me. But this is what you get, seeing the Rheostatics live: you get Martin Tielli looking like he's pulling every note straight through his guitar strings from heaven. (But, you know, not from a solemn heaven. Jesus was once a teenager, too.) You get such amazing love and joy and passion and play from Tielli and Bidini--and such creativity, too. (They were never perfect; they were too good to be perfect.) What you get is that you're missing something if you listen half-distractedly to the records. (It's understated, expectant, beckoning: the divinities are the beckoning messengers of the godhead.) That's what you got.
I thought, a couple of times last week, man, I wish I could do that. And then I realized, you know, you don't have to do that to do that. I have my own way of doing that ... I hope. It's not only rock 'n' roll.
As it turned out, I saw all three shows of Rheostatics Farewell Week. I wasn't going to bother going to the Horseshoe, because I was so annoyed with the Queen West jerkasses the last time I went there for Fall Nationals, a few years ago. (Though I did have my moment of satisfaction when they did "In This Town" as an encore: "All the idiots who're talking don't know anything at all.") The jerkasses didn't fail to disappoint--actually, this was a new record for jerkassity--but still, I shouldn't've missed it for the world. One last shot of the Rheostatics in their natural habitat before the general weirdness of Massey Hall, with its seats made for 19th-century knees.
L. has been attempting to evangelize her parents, but this is a hard band to get into. You hear that they're "weird" or "experimental", but that isn't really it. If you hear those sorts of things and then you hear a few songs, you might wonder what the fuss is about--seems like pretty plain rock music, a lot of it. (Especially the two songs that got much radio play--two Tim Vesley songs, ironically and understandably.) A little rough around the edges. Listen to a bit more and the next thing is that you realize these guys are pretty goofy. My first thought about the Rheostatics, in 1994, about Introducing Happiness, was something much like: these guys would be pretty good if they weren't so goofy.
They are in their element live, no doubt about it. I first saw them in something like the spring of 1995, in Clark Hall Pub, at Queen's. There was a guy calling for "Saskatchewan" all night--I assumed he was from Saskatchewan, since a lot of Queen's students were from all over the country. He may have been, but--it took me years, and then finally that song grabbed me by the back of the throat. I mean, it took me until just a few years ago. "I could not fire, and I don't know why. Then I knew the truth. I felt I got what I deserved." (I don't know why that shouldn't have grabbed me sooner, but this is where it's good to be a bit slow on the uptake--there's always more left.) That was the first song they played at Massey Hall.
Anyway--I don't know whether I would've loved them so much so soon if I hadn't seen them so early on, though I was already the one who was going to stay at Clark and see them with hell and high waters rising around me. But this is what you get, seeing the Rheostatics live: you get Martin Tielli looking like he's pulling every note straight through his guitar strings from heaven. (But, you know, not from a solemn heaven. Jesus was once a teenager, too.) You get such amazing love and joy and passion and play from Tielli and Bidini--and such creativity, too. (They were never perfect; they were too good to be perfect.) What you get is that you're missing something if you listen half-distractedly to the records. (It's understated, expectant, beckoning: the divinities are the beckoning messengers of the godhead.) That's what you got.
I thought, a couple of times last week, man, I wish I could do that. And then I realized, you know, you don't have to do that to do that. I have my own way of doing that ... I hope. It's not only rock 'n' roll.
