so, i'll be honest, i only know calexico by word of mouth and from one cd i heard in someone's car on a roadtrip somewhere. sounded great, loved what i heard, but that was it. iron & wine, again, word of mouth, reading peoples thoughts on message boards, and one song a friend put on a mixed disc for me that i couldnt name you. then i heard the ep with them together and i fell in love. so, i was really getting excited for this show on the merits that i could learn about both of their bands separately, and enjoy what i came to love with them together. it worked out perfectly. calexico opened and they were stellar. i really love their groove and that whole texmex southwest kinda sound... incredible players, too... loved the horns, loved the pedal steel, all of it. obviously, i cant give you a setlist or anything, as i dont know the name of anything i heard, but it was fantastic. iron & wine was up next and man, he was great. absolutely reserved and totally mellow, but awesome all the same. the crowd was so fucking quiet, at the beginning of his set you could hear a pin drop. so not like toronto. towards the end it got mildly chatty, but for the most part, it was the largest quietest crowd i'd ever been a part of. everything about the evening was "reserved". but in a way everyone just seemed focussed. it was actually pretty cool, i thought. very respectful, and thoughtful. much like the man's music. now that i think about it, there was definitely a sort of echo effect between the crowd and the perfomer. again, i couldnt tell ya anything he played, but none of it sucked. the only song i knew was not played, i know that much. calexico came out a few times during his set and joined him, and i really did think that stuff was better, it just added so much more depth to his songs... there were times during his own perfomance when i felt a full band would do him some good, but thats not to take away from anything he was doing, which was incredible.. just add to it, you know? it takes a lot of balls to get up there like that and pour your heart out by yourself. he does it so well, with a vast amount of patience and respect for what he's doing. i thoroughly enjoyed him and really look forward to getting more into his catalogue. same with calexico. the last set was them all together and that was my favourite part of the night... they suit each other so well, such a perfect match for their music, and they seem to really enjoy being up there together. they covered All Tomorrow's Parties, and the 3 of us all agreed today at lunch that it sounded like a total deep in the funk burt neilson jam underneath it all... a fresco jam, to me... that was pretty good... unexpected, too.... they played a bunch of the ep, most beautifully Prison On Route 41, with just 2 acoustics and accordian i think, im gettin' foggy now, but it was the singer from calexico who sang it this time, and it was just gorgeous. maybe highlight of the night? they didnt play my favourite song on the ep, which is the one that comes right after prison on rte. 41. anyways, great great show, and it was all said and done by midnight... sooooooooooooooo...
head on over to the legendary horseshoe tavern where the Rheostatics are kicking off their (at least 4th?) Annual Fall Nationals, which is basically a 12 night stand at the Horseshoe with all kinda different theme nights. by the time we got across town and took the necessary smokable precautions before entering the bar, it was probably 1 or 1:30... still plenty of time for the Rheostatics at the horseshoe... we got in right near the end of the first set, for free no less, and they closed it out with an absolutely raging Dopefiends and Boozehounds... martin was totally in his element, and they were rockin' out bigtime.. fuck, when they lay it all out and just get right to playing rock n roll together, stretching it out and having fun, there is no better band than the Rheostatics. i said it. i've seen them more times than any other band, probably upwards of 30, and yeah, they have bad nights, and i've seen some awful shows, but when you get those moments, holy fucking shit - that's why you're there, right? long live the Rheostatics. personal highlights for me were calling the first 2 encore songs against the judgement of my buddies... hahaha, i shoulda had beers on 'em.... Take Me In Your Hand > P.I.N.... again, absolute beauty. they stretched their encore out, as always and played a few newer songs, before the show came to an abrupt end basically while i was taking a piss... i heard a big lull after a tune, and apparently the bass player thought it was over, but martin wanted to play another tune, and they had a bit of a spat, and then lemme say, there was definitely some angry bass playing and more intense than normal singing coming from Tim in the middle... then they were done. and i was glad to get my rheos fix. man, that dopefiends was KILLER!!!!!!!!!!! for those of you who dont know the rheostatics, they are easily canada's best kept secret and have been for 20 years. "critically acclaimed" up the wazoo, but never really caught on with the masses, which is probably for the best... art-rock for lack of a better expression, but definitely ROCK!
edit: wow, just cruised over to bt.etree and here's a rheos show i saw in ottawa this past summer, at the end of bluesfest.. right on! i remember this as being a pretty decent show. if you're curious, there's probably some great moments, but there's probably some shitty moments, too.
all in all a fantastic night in toronto - we tried to cap it off with a little korean grill all you can eat meat, but they were closing when we arrived, so Golden Griddle it was... had the korean grill for lunch today on the way out.
