June 29th 1993, PJ Harvey at The Spectrum

The first time I ever saw PJ Harvey live was at The Spectrum in Toronto in 1993. It was on the "Rid of Me" tour, and it was an awesome show that fully solidified my admiration for Harvey's work as an artist, as a songwriter, and as a performer. 

Harvey's first album "Dry" was an excellent collection of songs that presented her and her band as serious musicians and it received a lot of interest and support from the music press at the time, with a lot of reviewers and critics declaring Harvey as an especially significant artist. "Dry" suggested a lot of potential, but her second album "Rid of Me" was the album that fully displayed Harvey's gifts, a strong and mature artistic vision that would set the course for all of her records to come.

The show at the Spectrum ably recreated that vision with a passion that I've rarely ever seen on stage, and throughout the show I was completely spellbound by Harvey's immense ability. Songs like Rid of Me and Yuri G were delivered with an energy and intensity that impressed greatly, and Naked Cousin was all fuzzy distortion and screams, a loud and furious noise that seared itself into my memory like white hot light. The whole set was incredible really, a raw and emotional performance that alternated between ecstasy and exorcism.

I've seen PJ Harvey a number of times since then, and every one of those later shows has added to my appreciation and respect for her artistry and talent, but this first time seeing her live? This is the one that stands out the most for me, an introduction to a powerful performer with full command of her craft and her abilities. Later concerts may have been more polished or may have shown a further sophistication and growth in her songwriting skills, but it was this first time seeing her live at the Spectrum that demonstrated the pure essence of PJ Harvey as an artist to me, a show that solidified my standing as a long time fan.

June 26th 2019, Ariana Grande at Scotiabank Arena

There's no question in my mind that Ariana Grande makes really great Pop music, really strong songs that demonstrate not only a solid understanding of the form and style, but also display an incredible talent and really exceptional vocal gifts. Over the years she's released a number of solid albums, but I think that the release of "Sweetener" ushered in a particular era in her career where talent and skill and artistry have all came together perfectly.

Grande's performance at the Scotiabank Arena in 2019 was spectacular, an artist at the top of their game, a performer who has reached a level of experience and ability that transcends the medium they're working in. She's making intelligent and resonant music that totally captures the Pop zeitgeist while simultaneously pushing the genre forward in new and exciting ways. Focusing mostly on tracks from "Sweetener" and "Thank u next", Grande gave an impressive performance that moved from highlight to highlight over the course of the evening, with God is a Woman, Breathin, and No Tears Left to Cry all being particularly strong moments that really stood out for me. It was also her birthday that evening so the audience sang Happy Birthday to her to celebrate, and that was pretty cool too.

I have no doubts that Grande's music will continue to develop and continue to grow in the years to come and I very much look forward to seeing where her talents take her in the future, but I'm glad that I had the opportunity to see the start of an exciting and transitional new era in her career in support of the "Sweetener" album.

June 22nd 1990, 1993, and 1995, Depeche Mode, New Model Army, and Catherine Wheel

As I've been looking back through my concert tickets for shows to write about, every so often I find there are days with multiple shows from different years, and today is one of those days. I've seen Depeche Mode, New Model Army, and Catherine Wheel on various iterations of June 22nd over the years, and now that I think about it that actually sounds like a pretty good festival line up...

The Depeche Mode show in 1990 was the Toronto date for the World Violation Tour in support of the "Violator" album, and it was a pretty glorious gig at the CNE Grandstand with Nitzer Ebb and the Jesus and Mary Chain opening. My friend Dave H. and I had fairly decent tickets on the floor, but it was pouring rain so we got totally soaked and it was pretty cold and miserable weather wise, but that didn't change the fact that it was an awesome show. Depeche Mode were in excellent form that night, playing a set of classic and soon to be classic material including Enjoy the Silence and Personal Jesus, and they encored with a live mashup of Behind the Wheel and Route 66 that was exceptionally awesome. I saw the tour again a few months later, and I'll write that up a little more for an entry in November. 

New Model Army were awesome live, I had seen them a couple of years earlier at Finsbury Park in London with The Mission and they were really great, but seeing them up close at Lee's Palace was a particular highlight. The energy and intensity were really high that night, and the band ran through a great set list including a handful of tracks like White Coats and 51st State from "The Ghost of Cain" and other songs from "The Love of Hopeless Causes". Good times.

Catherine Wheel always put on a great show, and this gig at the Opera House stands out as one of my favorite times seeing them. My friend Bevin and I went and we sat in the balcony to get a little bit more space. The floor was packed and it was crazy hot that night, but sitting up in the back seats by the rafters made it a little more bearable. I wouldn't exactly call Catherine Wheel a Shoegaze band, but they were definitely Shoe-y adjacent, and that evening they were playing a highly effected set, a veritable Wall of Flange that wrapped around the audience like a cocoon of aural bliss that peaked during a version of Black Metallic that went on for over twenty minutes. I still get chills thinking about it now...

Great shows all of them, and it would suggest to me that astrologically speaking June 22nd is a very fortuitous day for shows. I look forward to a lot more June 22nd gigs in the years to come...

June 20th 1986, Depeche Mode at Kingswood Music Theatre

The very first concert I ever saw was Depeche Mode at Kingswood Music Theatre in 1986. It was the Black Celebration Tour and I'm not exaggerating when I say that it was a defining moment in my life, an incredible time unlike anything I'd ever experienced before that point. There's no doubt in my mind that it was this show that inspired the love of live music that I still have to this day.

My first introduction to Depeche Mode was in 1983 when I saw a performance of Everything Counts on Top of the Pops during a family visit to the UK. The song was completely different from anything I'd heard to that point, a sound driven by a combination of synths, xylophone, melodica, vocals, and... an oboe? What's more, they were singing about... contracts? What? The band themselves had a really eighties look to them, a lot of earth tones to be honest, but there was something that set them aside. Maybe it was Alan Wilder playing a stand up drum kit, or Dave Gahan rocking a suit and tie. Maybe it was Andy Fletcher, spiked red hair like a New Wave Archie Andrews, or Martin Gore, bare-chested and absolutely refusing to mime the song. I really can't say what it was specifically, but cumulatively it all came together in a way that intrigued and interested me greatly. 

Over the next few years Depeche Mode released a handful of singles and a couple more albums, all of them improving and building on the sound of Everything Counts, refining their style. People are People, Master and Servant, Blasphemous Rumours, so many great songs that demonstrated further development and maturity not only as songwriters and performers, but as sonic architects crafting a unique and distinct sound all their own. But it was Stripped, an advance single taken from the "Black Celebration" album at the start of 1986 that really sealed the deal for me, a seemingly random blend of samples, synths, metal sheeting, and Dave Gahan's sexiest ever vocal all coming together as one of the best singles of the last thirty five years. Stripped is an absolutely phenomenal song and to deny the sheer perfect awesomeness of it is nearly impossible.

A few months after the release of Stripped, "Black Celebration" came out and it proved to be an incredible collection of music that represented the best work the band had done to that point. In addition to releasing the album a tour was also announced that would include a show in Toronto as part of the Kingswood Music Theatre $5 Concert Series for that summer. Kingswood was an outdoor venue at an amusement park outside of the city called Canada's Wonderland. They used to host live shows all summer long, and the idea was that you would pay to get into the park to ride roller coasters and eat funnel cakes and shit and then you'd go to the concert in the evening. The pairing of live music with an amusement park was a pretty genius idea, and over the years I ate a lot of funnel cakes and saw a lot of concerts there. 

Let us pause for a moment here and also reflect on the $5 price of this show. Think about it. I saw Depeche Mode on the Black Celebration tour for $5. Nowadays you can't buy lunch for $5. There are coffee drinks that cost more than that show, and I can say with all honesty that there has never been a coffee drink that was anywhere near as awesome as seeing Depeche Mode live in 1986. Truly this was the best $5 I ever spent.

Anyway, Depeche Mode announced a show and my friends Jack, Kirsteen, Dave B., Jodi, and Dave H. and I all decided we should go. I had no idea about how to get tickets, but Dave B. had it all worked out and if memory serves me correctly he skipped school and lined up at Hillcrest Mall in Richmond Hill to get tickets for all of us. Dave B. had edge like that. My memory also fails me about how we got there, I suspect that one of the Daves drove us, but I'm hard pressed to imagine that all six of us fit into a car together, did we? I really can't remember, but we got there early enough in the morning to spend the day riding roller coasters and eating funnel cakes and shit like we were expected to do, and it was all pretty great. I think that Jodi was far more interested in roller coasters than the rest of us, but I'm pretty sure that I was the one who was most interested in funnel cakes. I mean, roller coasters are cool and all, but a good funnel cake is something really special. 

After we'd gotten our fill of amusement park thrills, we headed to the theatre and the show started promptly at 8pm with openers Book of Love. They had a song called I Touch Roses that was getting a fair bit of radio play at the time so I had a passing familiarity with them and they were pretty cool. They were quite literal in their presentation and threw rose petals into the crowd during the single, and in hindsight I kind of love that. It's a bit on the nose but it's also kind of awesome. Good job Book of Love!

After that a curtain was drawn across the stage obscuring our view of what was happening, and I'll admit that I was kind of perplexed by what that was all about. I've seen a thousand sound checks and between-set guitar techs doing their thing since then, but at the time I had no idea what was going on and I was really curious about what was going to happen. Were the band particularly shy, and refused to be seen by their fans? I mean, was that even possible? And if that were the case, how would we even know it was them playing the music? I was pretty worried and my concern continued to grow for about fifteen minutes until finally the lights went down and an intro tape began. And if you've ever been to any live show in your life then you know that the crowd went crazy at that point even though the fucking curtain stayed firmly in place and I couldn't see anything. 

You can tell that at the time I clearly had no sense of the dramatic entry...

The intro music played for a few minutes, spotlights dancing across the curtain, and everybody's anticipation kept rising. Slowly out of the soundscape you could hear the opening to Black Celebration begin. On the album it kind of builds up from a bubbling synth line for a minute or so before the vocals kick in, but at the show they let that synth line play longer to let the excitement grow.

Then a few minutes into the build up, with the stage still obscured by the curtain, Dave Gahan's vocals rang out with the opening line of the song, "Let's have a Black Celebration..." and the curtain STILL DID NOT FALL!!! You could hear the rest of the band start playing and soon the song was in full swing but there was no movement from the curtain, and I'll admit that I started suspecting that there may have been a reason that tickets were only $5. By the time the first verse had almost finished I was just about to express my concerns to Dave H., when all of a sudden the chorus hit, the curtain fell (!), and there were the band! All of the audience's earlier excitement grew exponentially and the crowd pretty much erupted in orgasmic ecstasy at that point. And this was only the first song. To say that it was an incredible opening would be a tremendous understatement. 

Over the next two hours Depeche Mode played their hearts out and the audience loved every fucking minute of it. Or at least I loved every fucking minute of it, I have no idea what the rest of the audience thought because I was in a trance bordering on ecstasy. They played Master and Servant, A Question of Time, A Question of Lust, Stripped, Everything Counts, and more. They had a large metal sheet that Martin Gore hit like a gong during Shake the Disease. They played Blasphemous Rumours, and Somebody, and People are People. They played an amazing future shock version of Photographic, and they closed with More Than a Party. I don't think they've ever played More Than a Party since then. And when the last encore was done and the lights came up, my life was changed. There was something about live performance, a perfect blend of passion and talent and music and magic that I'd never experienced to that point, and it struck me at the time that it was the most amazing combination of elements I had ever seen. I would never be the same again.

Since then I've seen Depeche Mode a bunch of times and a few things come to mind as I think about this particular show. It was still pretty early in the band's career so Martin Gore wasn't playing guitar yet and they didn't have a live drummer or back up singers, but despite that they still had a really full sound, a really defined musical presence. I don't recall there being any videos, though there might have been for a couple of songs. Really it was a pretty sparse show compared to what they do these days. But in some ways maybe it's best that it was such a simple presentation because it let me focus on the performance, and really that's what's at the heart of every concert. It's interesting too that although the band were still in their early days, most of the significant elements of later shows were already present. Given that A Question of Time debuted on this album I would expect that Dave Gahan's patented spinning mike stand trick had it's introduction on this tour, but I expect he'd been doing his whole hip shaking thing for a while by that point because there is no doubt that he was pretty good at shaking his hips that night. I would go so far as to say that he looked sensational doing it. And while we're talking about looking sensational, Martin Gore was rather dashing wearing a dog collar and leather lederhosen, but he also looked fairly nervous and maybe even a little shy when he took the mike to sing two songs at mid set. I guess it takes a different kind of bravery to wear lederhosen than it does to sing in front of an adoring audience. I can respect that. 

All in all everything came together perfectly to make it an outstanding night, pretty much the perfect concert experience, and as we filed out of the theatre when the show was all done I had a huge smile on my face. Seeing Depeche Mode that early summer evening in 1986 with my friends was something resonant and connective that's stayed with me ever since, opening me up to a whole new world of musical enjoyment. That was the moment when I fell in love with the concert experience, and it's a love that remains with me to this day...

June 10th 1992, The Ramones at RPM

In 1992 I went to see The Ramones at RPM with my friends Brooke and Liz. In the late eighties and early nineties it was kind of an annual event that the band would come to town to play a couple of nights, and Brooke and Liz and I went to see them on a few of those visits. 

Their set was about an hour long and they played about thirty songs. There was a lot of counting by the band and a lot of jumping by the audience. RPM was really hot that night, and we were all covered in sweat when it was over. The Ramones were always a good time and this was a great show.

June 7th 2014, Interpol at Field Trip

There's something special about festival shows, isn't there? An outdoor concert on a night with nice weather out by the lake or in a field somewhere, a bunch of bands, I love that kind of thing. Over the years Toronto has played host to countless music festivals in a variety of genres, and I've been lucky enough to see touring shows, city specific events, a whole ton of different things that all speak to the joys of getting outside and listening to some music under the night sky.

Field Trip is one of the best of those city specific events, an annual festival held on the grounds of Historic Fort York down by the Lakeshore. Field Trip is unquestionably a music event, but it also encourages kids and families to attend and enjoy the show along with other activities like arts and crafts and stuff, and it's a really great fun summer vibe. Over the years it's played host to an impressive list of bands like Metric, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The National and more, and based on those bands and the idea of it being a cool family event, Field Trip has gained a strong reputation as one of the best festivals in the city. 

The 2014 edition of Field Trip had Interpol as the Saturday night headliner and I kind of love Interpol, so Carolyn and I made sure that we picked up a pair of tickets. June in Toronto is pretty much Goldilocks weather, not too hot and not too cold, just right, and that evening was particularly glorious. On the way in we had the good fortune of running into my friend Wardy working at the box office and that seemed like an auspicious beginning to the day. Carolyn and I wandered around the grounds looking at vendor booths and checking out food trucks and stuff, and we spent a little while playing hula hoop which is when I learned that Carolyn is actually pretty good at hula hooping. We also learned that I am not nearly as good at hula hooping as she is and there is photographic evidence of this disparity in skill for those of you who are interested.

We checked out A Tribe Called Red who were really great, and I was really impressed with The Kills' set, swampy Blues-y Garage rock that intersects with Nick Cave and PJ Harvey. We got dinner from a booth set up by the people that run Kanga, and that began my long time love for Australian pies, particularly the ooey gooey delight that was their Mate's Masala. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. But as much as we enjoyed everything else going on that day we were mainly there for Interpol's set and I'm happy to say that they totally delivered.

My first introduction to Interpol was through my friend Janet, who suggested I might like them and played their first album "Turn on the Bright Lights" for me as we drove through the city one winter's night. She was right, I did like them, and from that point on I've been a solid fan of their Post Punk artistry and technique, a sound that really transcends styles and becomes something more. Their show at Field Trip was a great example of that artistry and technique in action, featuring a selection of fan favorite tracks mostly from "Turn on the Bright Lights" and "Antics", along with a couple of songs from "El Pintor" which was scheduled to come out later that Fall. Evil and C'mere are always solid additions to any Interpol set, and I'm always up for seeing them play Narc and Take You on a Cruise, a pair of tracks from the "Antics" album that stand at the top of my list of favorite Interpol songs. Lights was performed as an encore, an epic spiraling take on the song, fully dramatic and fully impressive, a piece of music that I could easily get lost in under the right circumstances.

Interpol played a great set that night, a really great performance that highlighted all of the qualities that made me a fan. After the show Carolyn and I walked home from Fort York, stopping at Smoke's Poutinerie at Queen and Bathurst where they were offering a special samosa poutine that I've only had the one time but remains the standard by which all later poutines have been compared, and y'know, between hula hooping and Australian pies and Interpol and samosa poutine it really was a great time that sticks out in my memory as a pretty much perfect day. I'm very much looking forward to getting back to Field Trip and other festivals in the future, and making more memories of perfect days and beautiful nights spent outside seeing bands under the night sky...

June 5th 1997, Prince at The Warehouse

I was lucky enough to see Prince in a variety of settings over the years, and while there's no question that he was always a dynamic and amazing performer, there's also no denying that seeing him in a small venue really brought all of his artistry and talent into particular focus. In a big venue like the Air Canada Centre or Maple Leaf Gardens he was well aware that he was entertaining a crowd that numbered in the thousands. But in a smaller venue like Massey Hall or the Sony Centre there was a greater sense of intimacy to what he was doing, a relaxed looseness that gave him the opportunity to stretch out and do what he wanted. In a big venue Prince was performing for an audience, but in a smaller space it very much felt like Prince was performing for Prince, and that distinction meant anything could happen at that point.

In 1997 I was able to see Prince at the Warehouse, a club gig that was only announced that morning, and it was definitely the most free form and spontaneous show that I ever saw him do. It felt as though he was making up the set list as he went along, calling out shots to the band and jamming on whatever he felt like at the time. There was little interest in promoting his current album "Emancipation" or any of the hits, it really just felt like he was playing whatever he wanted, with a handful of covers and B-sides, some deeper album cuts and just two or three singles. Yes, he played Purple Rain and Raspberry Beret, but it was songs like 17 Days and If I Was Your Girlfriend, The Cross and Take Me With U that really defined the show for me, electric and elastic takes where the band stretched out the songs and jammed on whatever groove came to mind.

It was an incredible night, but that was what you expected from a Prince show, amazing music by an amazing artist. As a longtime fan I was thrilled to see him up close in a small venue, and the chance to hear some favorites that weren't normally part of his live shows was especially exciting. There have been a few times since his death where I've been listening to his albums and I'm struck and saddened by the fact that I'll never have the chance to see him play another concert again, but I'm also very grateful that I had the chance to see him as many times as I did. At the end of it all I'd rather be happy to have experienced the shows that I did see rather than sad about any shows that I missed, and I'm especially happy to have experienced his show at the Warehouse in 1997...
 

June 4th 1997, Switchblade Symphony at Lee's Palace

 

There's no question that the internet has been a huge resource for music fans, literally making an entire world of music available at the touch of a button. It's an unprecedented era of choice and discovery, and I'm truly grateful to live in a time where there are so many different opportunities to hear and discover new artists. But as rich as today's musical landscape is, it's worth remembering that before the internet there was another way to find out about new bands. Gather 'round and let me tell you about 'zines...

Growing up in the eighties and nineties a lot of my early musical discoveries were made through radio and video shows, suggestions from friends, right place/right time coincidences and the like, but an important piece of the puzzle was 'zines. Before the internet 'zines were huge, a thriving counter culture that served much of the same function as a blog or a website, only in a hard copy paper form using lovingly hand-crafted layouts, put together with glue and scissors and eight and a half by eleven stock, photocopied and mailed out to readers or given out at shows or sold at indie record stores. Like the internet, 'zines gave a voice to people's interests, a way to share the things that you cared about and to connect with others that felt the same way that you did.

Anybody could start a 'zine and in the early nineties there was a thriving scene focused on a huge range of topics like skateboarding, and urban exploration, and fashion, and anime, and pretty much anything else that you could think of. I was most interested in the music 'zines, particularly the Goth/Industrial ones, and they became a gateway to find a wide range of new bands and musical projects that I probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to discover otherwise. 'Zines were an incredible resource in helping me find new music, and a lot of my music collection was shaped by the advice of Stained Pages and Corpus and The Sentimentalist and Sombre Souls on Prozac and any number of other great 'zines. 

A number of smaller record labels also recognized the impact that 'zines had in spreading the word to a fandom, and many of them would send promo copies for review in hopes of reaching a wider audience that were looking for new sounds to hear. Cleopatra was one of the labels that got a lot of  'zine coverage back then, a label out of California that were mostly known for their cover song compilations where up and coming Goth and Industrial bands would record cover songs by popular artists. It was actually a pretty genius idea, giving a new band something familiar that would probably appeal to fans of the original. You like Bauhaus?  Check out these new artists playing Bauhaus songs! You like Siouxsie and the Banshees? Here's a bunch of artists playing Siouxsie and the Banshees songs! 

But Cleopatra weren't just about covers, they also had a handful of bands on the label that released full albums, and one of my favorites was Switchblade Symphony. The first time I heard about Switchblade Symphony was in an interview that appeared in The Ninth Wave, a really great Goth culture 'zine that my friend Liisa did. The interview interested me enough to track down a copy of their first album "Serpentine Gallery", and it proved to be a pretty awesome debut, a fresh blend of electronic and organic elements with smart arrangements and ideas that crossed a variety of forms and styles. I listened to that album pretty regularly after that and when they announced a show at Lee's Palace in 1997 I made sure to go and check them out.

Lee's is one of my favorite places to see a show, and Sunshine Blind opened the night strong. Lead singer Caroline Blind was particularly awesome that night, a great singer and solid guitar player, a really charismatic lead. They played an excellent rendition of their club hit Release and a great cover of I Ran by A Flock of Seagulls, and it was a solid set of songs that I was pretty impressed by.

Switchblade Symphony's set followed and they were truly exceptional, with lead singer Tina Root and keyboard/instrumentalist Susan Wallace joined by a guitarist and drummer that filled out their sound really well. In a live setting Root's voice was just as versatile and fluid as it was on album, able to shift from a quiet whisper to a roar in seconds, truly distinct and unique. The set was based largely around "Serpentine Gallery", as their second album "Bread and Jam for Frances" wouldn't be released until later that fall, but they did play an excellent version of Drool which had been released as an advance single around the time of the show. The highlight of the night for me was when they played Dissolve, and it was just as dreamy and amazing as I had hoped it would be, swirling and beguiling, a sound that completely surrounded and enveloped the audience and maintained my focus so strongly that all the rest of the world vanished and, well, dissolved from my mind until all that existed was the band and the music. It was pretty intense...

As far as I know Switchblade Symphony don't have any particular 'zine connection themselves outside of what others did to support them, but for me they'll always be firmly entrenched in 'zine culture. I realize that I could have discovered them just as easily any other number of ways, but it was that first write up in The Ninth Wave that piqued my curiosity, an inextricable link in my mind and a connection that sets them aside as being something that I may have missed if it hadn't been for glue sticks and scissors and late nights with a photocopier. Thanks to my friend Liisa for making that introduction all those years ago, and thanks to Tina Root and Susan Wallace for making some great albums and playing some great shows that have stayed with me for years...