This one is a little vaguer in my memory. I remember this being a church show. I managed to dig up my ticket stub and it places it at Grandview Baptist Church in Kitchener in late 1997.
Opener on the day was Emerson Stone from Manitoba. I remember being a little excited about this as I had heard of the band from my brother. They were ok, but had a lame song they wrote about buying their merch.
Soulfood 76 came next and although I still have a couple of their fuzzed out albums, I don’t remember too much about the live show.
Honestly, I don’t remember too much about Hokus Pick’s set either. It was after Snappy was released, so it would’ve been fairly upbeat. I picked up a shirt promoting their “Let Go, Let God” song featuring four Lego characters. I still have this shirt and you may see me wearing it from time to time. It’s held up well even though it’s old enough to drink in Canada.
After being a fan of MxPx for 3 years and not having seen them, this was the second show in a month for me. Many jokes were made leading up to this show because we had to call the “Call The Office” pub for details on the show since this information wasn’t available online in 1997.
I don’t remember much about Bracket or Reset, but one of them turned into Simple Plan, so I guess that’s something.
Sadly, someone created an entry for the show on setlist.fm, but didn’t fill in the setlist. This was still Life In General-era MxPx, so not a huge back catalog to choose from. They created a song on the spot with a lyric “Today is Wednesday, Today is Wednesday but tomorrow is Thursday”. That’s all that I can picture from the actual music.
I picked up a T-shirt that I wore a lot and still have kicking around, even though it’s pretty worn and ratty. The front had a red maple leaf with MxPx written on top of it. Anyone who saw me during the years of 1997-2002 has probably seen me wear it.
I’m not sure why I went to this show. At the time, I wouldn’t have been a huge fan of Foo Fighters and didn’t really know Talk Show or Treble Charger. This was the tour for The Colour and the Shape, so there wasn’t even that much of a back catalog for the band to choose from.
I went to this show with a friend who claimed he knew the guys from Treble Charger because he went to a lot of their shows in London. I lost track of him at some point during the show and remember seeing him hanging out with them after they played their set, so I guess the story checked out.
For Talk Show, I remember the audience generally disliking them due to the fact that Scott Weiland wasn’t there. The only cheers I remember them getting were when they played a STP song and covered an electronic song, possibly Breathe by The Prodigy.
Finally, the Foo Fighters took the stage. Two drum kits were visible at the back of the stage through the entire show and their purpose was finally revealed when Dave Grohl & Company took the stage. They kicked things off with Grohl and Taylor Hawkins each on a kit.
Only other standout memory is really wanting to hear I’ll Stick Around, which they saved for the end of the encore.
I figured that I’d start with something old that I have a somewhat clear memory of and proof exists that the show happened.
I made my first trip to Toronto to see this show. This was pre-Google Maps, pre-Mapquest, so I got directions to the venue from someone that had a terrible idea of how to go places in the city. Instructions that I got were exit on Yonge St and turn on Queen until you get to the venue. Only issue is that you can’t legally turn on Queen. I eventually made it to the venue, terrible directions and all.
I don’t remember much about Weston. I think they were ok. These days, I’m more familiar with Beach Slang which features one of the guys from the band.
MxPx was on second. I don’t remember much of the show other than really enjoying the set and being the tall, skinny kid in the mosh pit with a high-centre of gravity. A couple years ago, I found a video of the show that popped up on YouTube.
I had found an audio bootleg that I found a couple years after the show. Given that this would’ve been an analog recording, it’s not that bad.
Dance Hall Crashers came on last, but I think I had a mid-term the next day, so I didn’t stick around. But that night also served as the start of a ritual that gave birth to The Slurpee Song.
I’m getting to the age where I’m starting to forget things that I’ve done. You can blame kids, but it probably goes beyond that. As a result, I went through an exercise where I tried to write down every concert that I’ve attended. The next thing that I wanted to do was try to remember at least one thing about the show that was memorable. A lot of shows tend to blend together. I’m also curious to verify both that the show exists with the correct lineup and that I actually remember being there. I’ve already had discussions about shows that I went to with other people that were there and they barely remember it, so these results should be interesting.
It’s probably not any weirder featuring a track from a band made up of Mormons than a band full of atheists but I still feel that way. Released in 1999, the Low Christmas EP was one of the earlier indie rock Christmas albums. While being known mostly for their slow tempo and quiet nature, Just Like Christmas is surprisingly peppy and upbeat. It might be argued that this isn’t a true Christmas song, as the song just talks about scenes that were/were not like Christmas, but I want to listen to it at this time of year anyway.
David Bazan covered this for the AV Club, and unlike almost everything else that he’s released under his own name, he didn’t suck the joy and hope out of it. It looks like the original video is gone, so this is the best that I could find:
One of the fun things about starting this blog again was digging through areas of my music collection that I haven’t seen in a while and some stuff that I forgot about. I think this one definitely falls under the latter. Jesse Sprinkle is the bridge between the two groups listed here. His new band Vekora borrows most of Poor Old Lu, (Never found out why Nick Barber couldn’t help out on the bass line) for one of the two tracks that Poor Old Lu has released since their reunion album, The Waiting Room. When you start with Scott Hunter’s vocals, it definitely starts like a Poor Old Lu song but when Alexandra Wendt’s voice comes in, it goes somewhere that no Poor Old Lu song ever really went.
The New Pornographers – Joseph, Who Understood (from The Spirit of Giving EP)
This was not a band that I’d expect to feature on a Christmas blog, but they released this EP back in 2007. The song tries to tell the story of The Immaculate Conception from Joseph’s side. If your fiancée told you that she was pregnant and that an angel told her there was no father, how would you react? The lyrics definitely border on cheezy, but it’s still a question that I’d never really contemplated. The lyric moves from questioning to acceptance and provides a modern take on a part of the Christmas story that is very rarely talked about.
Puller – Saviour of the Fools (from Happy Christmas Vol. 1)
How often do you here of a band being so proud of a song that, well after the group has broken up, they create a website dedicated to the song. That’s just what Mike Lewis, formerly of Puller, did. Unfortunately, the site only existed briefly in 2011, so if you want to see if now, you need to visit the The Wayback Machine.
I never really got much into the band. I liked the What’s Mine At Twilight album and #1 Fan was fun, but given the amount of time that I spent in my adolescence listening to Tooth & Nail, I never really connected with their music. That said, I love this song.
I’ll just leave you with the lyrics:
So endless I’ve been taken away as patience yields to anger
As a world moves and bends to waves of sin that will not end
Weightless I fall from Grace, take the pause and wish it away
So many will be present so few will see and know.
Oh Savior of the Fools, Oh Savior of the Fools
Tapered lives that burn within surrendered to a life less lived
A crowd of rolling thunder that cannot make a sound
A day of a downcast fool, who finds a chance inside a baby’s eyes
When no one else will live, misunderstood as him.
Oh Savior of the Fools, Oh Savior of the Fools
And in my weakness I vanish with air,
To bow and tremble at the power in His hands
And in my darkness I’m visited again, by the still small voice Who calls
A fool to be a hero for Love
For Love, For Love, For Love, For Love, For Love
Christmas lights and trees can’t heal, broken lives and hearts that feel
The loneliness of fallen dreams, that leaves nothing at all
Moments pass a star to rise, a Baby’s born but born to die
To leave this world a light that cannot be taken out
Oh Savior of the Fools, Oh Savior of the Fools
And in my weakness I manage to relive,
The tear filled eyes of wise men standing in awe of Him
And in my darkness I’m visited again, by the still small voice that was born
On a silent night, to bring a life, for Love
For Love, for Love, for Love, for Love, for Love
Words by Mike Lewis
Oh yeah, Stavesacre also covered this and it’s excellent. Some days I like it better than the original. The link below is the only place that I’ve seen it other than a digital sampler that you got by buying some thing from zambooie.com one Christmas season. I think that I bought something just to get the sampler to here the song.
Pedro The Lion – I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day (from I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day)
Depressing Christmas music is kind of its own genre. Most Christmas songs are meant to be festive and joyous, but then you get some songs that are meant to be reflective. Beyond that, there’s a whole level beneath that of music that just depresses you (See Mark Kozelek’s Christmas album for an example of this). While recording under the Pedro The Lion moniker, David Bazan hit that reflective note, but the Christmas stuff that he’s released since he started releasing under his own name is just plain depressing. A lot of that is probably due to his abandoning of his Christian faith. After that, his music lost what little hope it had. But before we go too far down that rabbit hole, I’ve included one of the earlier songs which really suits his style. It’s critical and reflective, but still includes hope. One of the reason that I lost touch with his music for a few years was this loss of hope.
There are a few other renditions that are worth hearing:
