craigmcn

I know Big Gwilly doesn’t care much for the Blue Rodeo, but they’re easily my favourite band of all time. I finally got a chance to see them again last night at Massey Hall, for the first time in 12 years and a day. Seriously, the last time I saw Blue Rodeo perform was January 20, 1994, on their Five Days in July tour. That date sticks in my head because it was the last day I had an actual girlfriend. Yes, I’ve seen some nice girls since then, but we’ve never actually dated.

Also, the next day I saw Rymes with Orange for the first time (so 12 years ago to the day, as of last night). I have a feeling they opened for someone else, but I don’t remember, ’cause I was drunk. I’d been drinking rye and iced tea (’cause that was all the mix there was) and was absolutely shitfaced. We went to the campus bar, and I was already wasted. I had a few more drinks. Why, I can’t possibly imagine. But I proceeded to vomit all over the table I was sitting at and, surprise, surprise, the staff threw me out! They were polite enough to pay for my cab ride home, and Al’s cab ride back, ’cause he wasn’t gonna miss the show!!

Anyway, what an excellent show! Of course, they played some of the fan favourites: Heart like Mine, Bad Timing, Five Days in May, Hasn’t Hit Me Yet, Diamond Mine, Try, Bulletproof … need I go on? And of course played a bunch of stuff from the new album: Can’t Help Wondering Why, Are you Ready, Rena, I Will, Tired of Pretending. They had Kate Boothman (of the Real Priscillas) sing backup on Can’t Help Wondering Why (I was hoping to link to either a Kate Boothman or Real Priscillas site, but therealpriscillas.com is broken doesn’t exist, sorry). And Bazil Donovan sang Stage Door, very excellent.

Justin Rutledge opened and performed very well. I don’t have much to say, I wasn’t paying a bucket load of attention to him. There was no mention of an opening act, he wasn’t introduced, and until the 3rd song in about a six song set he didn’t introduce himself. So for those first 2 songs, it was just some dude playing guitar, with some other dudes backing him up. Mind you, one of the other dudes was Bazil Donovan on bass, but that didn’t mean a lot at the time. It was good stuff, enjoyable, with a bit of an absurdist bent, which generally appeals to me.