Saturday, August 28, 2021

August 28th 1989, The Cure at CNE Grandstand


Looking back on it, 1989 was a pretty good year for concerts.

I saw REM play at Maple Leaf Gardens on the Green Tour, and I went to two shows by The Who at CNE Stadium. I also saw New Order on the Technique tour with Public Image Limited and the Sugarcubes, and that was an amazing show. John McGeoch played guitar for PIL, the Sugarcubes were riding the success of their first album, and New Order were mind-blowingly amazing, playing brilliant versions of Ceremony, Temptation, The Perfect Kiss, Blue Monday and a ton of other songs. It was my friend Carrie's very first concert and even though we didn't know each other then it makes me happy to know that it was another moment that we shared together in a long history of shared moments.

But of all of the shows that happened in 1989, The Cure's Prayer Tour stands out the most in my mind. This is one of those shows that felt like it was special, like it was important. And it was special. It was important. 

In April of 1989 The Cure released two advance singles from their upcoming "Disintegration" album, a full month before it was scheduled to come out. Lullaby was the lead single in the UK, readily available as an import at any number of the Yonge Street record shops, and Fascination Street was the domestic release, easily obtainable everywhere else including the record store that I worked at. It was an unexpected treasure trove of riches, and it was enough to keep anticipation at bay long enough for the full album to come out. I remember my first time listening to Fascination Street, all low slung bass lines and chiming guitars, Robert Smith coaxing the listener down into the deep depths of deepness. It's a great song and well deserved of the high praise that most Cure fans have for it. Lullaby is equally as good, violins and strings and threats of an unpleasant date with a Spider-Man that would give Peter Parker nightmares. It's The Cure at their playful and scary best, a catchy track that kind of frightens the crap out of you if you listen closely enough. Needless to say both songs were great, really strong work leading me to expect that "Disintegration" would be an awesome album.

My anticipation would continue to grow until about a month later when Lee Carter from CFNY got an advance copy of the album and promised to play a few tracks from it on his radio show. I remember listening with my headphones late on a Thursday night with all the lights off and my eyes closed, pointedly reducing any other sensory distractions so I could concentrate on the music. Carter played Plainsong, the track that opens the album with the sound of wind chimes and deep synth lines and I was pretty much overwhelmed by it's beauty and its lyrics about a cold that's like the cold if you were dead. After that he played Lovesong, and I guess it would be a little silly to say that I fell in love with it right away, wouldn't it? But I did. It's another amazing song by The Cure, somehow perfectly attuned to my own feelings about love and forever and all of those other things.

And then he played what would become my favorite Cure song of all time. The eponymous Disintegration is an epic eight and a half minute tour de force filled with self-loathing and despair and some of the best lyrics that Robert Smith has ever written. "Now that I know that I'm breaking to pieces, I'll pull out my heart and I'll feed it to anyone, crying for sympathy, crocodiles cry, for the love of the crowd and three cheers from everyone". How can you not agree that this is Smith at his very best, truly a high point in an illustrious career? Brilliant stuff that connected with me from my very first listen and still resonates with me today.

The album was released shortly after that, and I bought it on CD at the Record Peddler while it was still across from the Carlton Cinema. Needless to say, it's a perfect album and will always stand as The Cure's masterpiece. I mean, honestly, you can argue that you like other Cure albums more, and I can appreciate that their catalog has favorite albums that fans may prefer for various reasons but really at the end of the day "Disintegration" is the best thing they've ever done, a collection of dizzying heights, heart-aching beauty, and crushing lows. It's a brilliant emotional roller coaster of a record, and I like to think that Kyle from South Park is absolutely correct in his assessment that "Disintegration" is the best album ever.

Once the album had been released, The Cure announced dates for the Prayer Tour which was billed as the last tour that the band would ever do. Looking back on it now it obviously wasn't the last time the band would tour, but that feeling of finality combined with the awesomeness of the album they were supporting gave this show a real sense of importance, an air of gravitas, and when tickets went on sale for the Toronto show at CNE Grandstand at the end of August, my friend Dave H. and I made sure that we got a pair.

The night of the show we arrived a little bit late, so we missed Shellyan Orphan's opening set, but we made it in time to see The Pixies. They had just released "Doolittle" earlier in the year and they put on a pretty good show. They did an excellent manic version of Monkey Gone to Heaven that night, and there was a big cheer when Robert Smith and his wife Mary walked across the field with Simon Gallup to watch their set from side stage.

Love and Rockets played that night too. I've always liked Love and Rockets, they have an awesome catalog of songs, and No New Tale to Tell, So Alive, Kundalini Express and more were all delivered really well that night. I'll admit that I went into the show hoping that they'd play Holiday on the Moon and I was a little disappointed that they didn't, but overall I was pretty impressed by their set.

But as good as the opening acts were, we were all really there to see The Cure, and there was a huge cheer as the lights went down and were replaced by a dark purple glow, the chimes of Plainsong playing as the band took the stage, opening the set just as majestically as it opens the album. Robert Smith was wearing a long black sweater and his hair was perfectly coiffed like the nest of a giant dark winged bird of doom, and he looked really cool. Simon Gallup wore a wide brimmed hat and a long white shirt over tights and army boots, and he looked really cool too. I'll be honest, I don't really remember what the rest of the band wore, I think Roger O'Donnell was wearing a jacket over a dress shirt, and I think that Porl Thompson may have been wearing a long black shirt with tights, but I've seen The Cure a number of times and I may just be confusing shows. I really have no idea what Boris Williams wore, he was kind of hidden behind his drum kit the whole night and I don't remember him ever getting out from behind it at all. Regardless, I'm sure he looked just as cool as the rest of the band.

They played everything from "Disintegration" that evening, even the two songs that were only released on the CD and cassette versions of the album, and it all sounded amazing, each song given a new life and energy in a live setting. Pictures of You and Closedown were dreamlike and beautiful, and Last Dance (another favorite of mine) had a particular poignancy to it that made it all the more impressive. Fascination Street was a great opportunity for Simon Gallup to stretch out his part and remind us what an awesome bass player he is. The Same Deep Water as You was haunting and perfect, and Robert Smith sustained that note he sings in Prayers for Rain for an interminable length, you know the one, long enough to make me wonder how he could keep breathing at the same time.

But it wasn't just songs from "Disintegration" that night. Interspersed between tracks were some Cure classics like A Night Like This and Just Like Heaven, all delivered with passion and intensity. Charlotte Sometimes was amazing, and A Forest was another highlight, stretched out to double it's original length, always a great live moment.

Disintegration closed the set before the encores, the sound of breaking glass and a heavy bass line opening the song, a steady strobe playing throughout it's entire length. It was a physically and emotionally draining performance, and when it was done I felt like I'd traveled to the heart of darkness and been left there as a quivering mass of gelatinous gooey quivering goo. What an awesome feeling!

The first encore included Lullaby and Close to Me, and the best extended version of Why Can't I be You? that I've ever heard, breaking it down and throwing in verses from Young at Heart by Frank Sinatra, Everybody Wants to be a Cat from the Aristocats soundtrack, and their own Lovecats. Smith's delivery of the lines "Life gets more exciting with each passing day, and love is either in your heart or on it's way, Don't you know that it's worth every treasure on earth to be young at heart?" were particularly moving, a few simple words that speak volumes about The Cure's work. Funny that a song from 1965 could capture a band so succinctly almost twenty five years later.

Homesick and Untitled were part of the next encore, along with A Strange Day from the "Pornography" album. They closed out the night with a foursome of songs from "Three Imaginary Boys" which has become kind of a live Cure tradition, And after that, about three hours after they started, the show was over, a perfect performance if ever there was one.


The day after the show, I hopped on a bus to Detroit so I could see the show again. I didn't have a ticket, I didn't know how to get to the venue, I was really kind of jumping into the darkness on this one, but I was determined to see the show again, and I figured that determination would be enough to get me through any difficulties. And it did. They played in an indoor arena in Auburn Hills called the Palace and the set was pretty much identical to the Toronto show, but it was still magical, still a perfect performance. I'm glad I had the chance to see it again, and there's no question in my mind that those two nights on the Prayer Tour in 1989 were the two best shows I've ever seen The Cure do...

Thursday, August 26, 2021

August 26th 1989, Neil Young at Kingswood Music Theatre

While I was working in the record store in my teens, my friend Robin introduced me to Neil Young's music, a rich and vibrant catalog of well written songs that alternated between acoustic and electric forms. Robin's influence meant that albums like "Harvest" and "Live Rust" were in high rotation at the store, and when Young announced a solo acoustic show at Kingswood Music Theatre in 1989 it was kind of a forgone conclusion that I'd be there.

Neil Young played a solid set of music that night, an acoustic guitar, a little bit of harmonica, and a whine about riding the Tilt-a-whirl, no doubt inspired by the amusement park that lay just beyond the venue. He played simple but powerful versions of songs that spanned his career, both as a solo artist and through his time with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. He played The Needle and The Damage Done, and Ohio, and Helpless, and an early version of Rockin' in the Free World which would be released on the "Freedom" album a few months later. There's something inspiring when you see an artist like Young with such an amazing collection of songs, and there's a certain awe when you think about all the music that he's written over the years.

It was a good night, kind of laid back and easy. It had been a warm day, that end of summer kind of heat, and a nice light breeze in the evening during the show cooled us all down a bit. I've seen Neil Young a handful of times since then, he's always put on a good show, but none of those shows were nearly as enjoyable or as inspiring as this one...

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

August 24th 1987, David Bowie and Duran Duran at CNE Stadium

Some shows are amazing, defining, life changing. Those are the ones that stay with you forever, the memories that you hold onto for the rest of your life. But there are some shows that aren't nearly as good, and some shows that are disappointments even though you had hoped for more. My first time seeing David Bowie was definitely a disappointment.

There's no question that Bowie is well remembered for his creatively fertile and groundbreaking work in the seventies, but much of what he did in the eighties benefits from selective memory and revisionist history. Undoubtedly "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)" released in 1980 is the greatest album ever made, and surely "Let's Dance" was a huge pop breakthrough all around the world. But after that point the eighties are a largely forgettable period in his back catalog. There's a valid argument that during this time Bowie was coasting on past achievements, throwing out the occasional single or soundtrack to remind us that he was still around, but there was little if any artistry to compare to his earlier years. Even though I considered him one of my heroes, I can speak from experience that it was hard to be a David Bowie fan in the eighties.

In 1987 Bowie released "Never Let Me Down", which is arguably the most forgettable album in his back catalog. Actually I'm probably being rather charitable in saying that it's forgettable, but I feel a certain loyalty as a fan to defend it, despite it's being ridiculously crappy. To support the release of the album Bowie announced his biggest, boldest, most theatrical extravaganza ever, and it was coming to Toronto. And even though I knew at the time that he had been coasting in terms of new music, this was also the first opportunity I had ever had to see my hero live, and I wasn't going to miss it.

The show was announced for late August at CNE Stadium, and there were some logistical challenges I needed to overcome to get there. Since I was working full time at the record store that summer I couldn't take off a week to line up for concert tickets, so I decided the best course of action was to wheedle and cajole and beg my district supervisor to get me tickets for the show. And somehow it worked. I was a low level cashier in a suburban shopping mall and my district supervisor probably couldn't even remember my name, but he came through and got me tickets to see David Bowie which was pretty damn cool. Thank you district supervisor, there will always be a special place in my heart for you helping me out.

So with tickets in hand, my friend Anton and I headed to CNE Stadium to see David Bowie. To reiterate what I may have shared in past entries, CNE Stadium was a huge baseball stadium in the middle of the Canadian National Exhibition fairgrounds (the Ex) that seated about 70,000 people. It was big. The CNE gounds are down by Lake Ontario, so by the time the sun goes down it can get pretty cold in late August, and as with most stadiums it was an open air venue so there wouldn't be much protection from the elements. I didn't really think to worry about that, but I probably should have. 

The concert was scheduled during the same time as the Ex, so Anton and I went down a little early to check out the midway. The Ex is a Toronto tradition, a yearly event that runs over the last few weeks of August until Labour Day, signalling the end of summer and ushering in the return of school and the September doldrums. It's a typical carnival, there's a midway with rides, and people trying to sell you stuff. There's always some crazy new food to eat that has to be grosser and more repellent than last year's gross and repellent crazy food (I think they were promoting chocolate flavoured pulled pork bacon poutine hamburger pizzas a couple of years ago, but I may be remembering that wrong...), and there are those little powdered donuts that everybody loves. Many people go to the Ex just to eat the little powdered donuts, they're kind of a big thing. Anyway, Anton and I went early so we could check out the Ex, and we paid a visit to a friend of ours who had a summer job as a barker at one of the shooting games where you tried to hit a bunch of targets so you could win a stuffed rabbit or something. The Ex had been open for a week by that point, maybe two, and our friend was quite excited to tell us about how somebody had taken a shit behind his booth that morning. In retrospect I realize in the movie of my life this would be an instance of foreshadowing...

Eventually after we'd eaten powdered donuts and talked about shit with our friend (both figuratively and literally), Anton and I headed to the stadium to find our seats. We were on the open side of the venue in the upper bleachers about two sections away from the stage, two rows down from the edge of the upper wall. Ultimately this meant that we were close to the stage, but way way way up in the sky. It was better than being at the other end of the stadium, or even worse, in the last section of the floors, and I was pretty happy when I realized that the distance we had would allow us to better appreciate the spectacle of the show. In keeping with the title of the tour the stage looked like a great big spider (a Glass Spider to be precise). A large head and abdomen hung over the stage facing the audience and long legs were draped down on either side. Underneath were a series of ramps and scaffolding, and a large video screen in the back with smaller video screens to the left and right (perfect for close up viewing for those of us who weren't in the first few rows). 

It should be pointed out that as with most big stadium shows, David Bowie had a pair of opening acts.  The first was a Canadian band called the Northern Pikes who had a couple of radio hits at the time and were on the same label as Bowie. The Northern Pikes would go on to do a few more albums and actually developed a fairly decent following in Canada in the years to come, and I mean honestly, you've just released your first album and you're playing stadiums with David Bowie? That's pretty fucking impressive. I was happy to see them on the bill. Good on you Northern Pikes, good on you.

The second opener was Duran Duran, and in hindsight it makes perfect sense that they did. Duran Duran were huge stars in their own right at the time, really talented musicians with awesome songs who probably could have sold out CNE Stadium on their own. But they were also heavily influenced by Bowie, a band who had grown up listening to his music, watching his videos, paying attention to what he was doing and giving it their own twist and style. I'm not suggesting that Duran Duran were Bowie clones, certainly they had enough going on themselves to warrant their success, but there was no question they owed a significant debt to Bowie for his inspiration and it made perfect sense that they would share a stage with him that night. I don't think I'd be out of line saying that Duran Duran were just as excited to be there as the audience was.

At the time Duran Duran were on a comeback of sorts, having lost two members since their last album, and there was a feeling that they had something to prove with their new material. Thanks to some slick production from Nile Rodgers (who had coincidentally produced the "Let's Dance" album among many other enormous successes), their latest album "Notorious" had set the stage for a new, more mature sound for the band, and everything clicked together for them on that tour. I'll admit that I don't remember if they opened with A View to a Kill or Notorious, but they started the set with one and played the other right after. Monstrous drums and slithering guitar lines echoed around the stadium and it was all pretty awesome. They played a number of songs from the new album, Meet El Presidente, Skin Trade, others, along with Election Day from the Arcadia album and Some Like it Hot by The Powerstation (side projects from the band during a between album hiatus), and I thought that was kind of cool.

They closed the set with Hungry Like the Wolf and The Reflex, and really they couldn't have made a better choice. There's always been a particular appreciation for The Reflex in Toronto (the video was filmed here), and it sounded particularly amazing that evening. A good opening act should get the audience excited and revved up for the main act, and Duran Duran were an awesome opening act that evening.

After Duran Duran's set there was a brief break, and then the lights went down and the stadium exploded with the roar of me and 69,999 other David Bowie fans. The spider stage was lit with a dark blue glow and long time Bowie guitarist Carlos Alomar stomped out to the front of the stage doing this crazy guitar work that could only be played with the advantage of hundreds of  years of practice and twelve fingers. He swailed away for a few minutes before he was interrupted by a voice yelling for him to shut up, and then suddenly the stage lights came on and a bunch of people rappelled down from the top of the spider, all with their own spotlights just in case we needed to know that this was something important.

At first I thought they were the band, but nooooooo, we would discover very quickly that they were not the band, they were dancers! As they hit the floor they started strutting and dancing and shouting about "Fixing hose pipes to cars" and "The Wrong Stuff!" I've never really figured out what they were on about, but it was delivered with an air of gravitas that has stayed with me for many years, and I have every faith that it was all very important. They picked up drums and started to play a vocal and percussion version of Up the Hill Backwards from "Scary Monsters". Opening the show with an obscure single from my favorite album? Yes, please!

And then everything went completely dark and a spotlight lit the spider's abdomen, just as Bowie began to recite the opening monologue to Glass Spider. There was an air of fantasy and magic and Tolkien and general geekery to what he was saying that was- OHMYGOD, DAVID BOWIE WAS COMING OUT OF THE SPIDER'S ABDOMEN IN A RED SUIT ON A CHAIR AND OMGOMGOMG!!!!!11!!1!!!!!

Ahem. Yes. David Bowie was lowered from the spider's abdomen wearing the best looking red suit ever, sitting in a silver chair while he recited the opening monologue from Glass Spider into a toy telephone. I realize the absurdity of this last sentence, but it was pretty fucking cool at the time, because there was my hero in person on stage in this fabulous red suit, and damn it all, it was pretty fucking cool.

(In the interest of full disclosure I feel it necessary to note that Bowie had a mullet during this period. It was the eighties and such was the time, and such was the style. We will not discuss this particular fashion tragedy again, and for the purpose of our discussion I want you to focus on the fabulous red suit he wore that night. Not the mullet. Never the mullet.)

So Glass Spider is playing and Bowie is singing and there was this whole big dramatic introduction for Peter Frampton who was playing guitar on the tour, and dancers, and lights and Bowie, and the whole audience, myself included, were getting some pretty serious feels from the whole experience.

But as exciting as the moment was, there was something that wasn't quite right about it. The truth is, as much as I was excited about seeing my hero, I didn't really want to hear this song. It wasn't a song that connected with me, it was... just a silly song from his new album that I really couldn't care less about, made significant only by the fact that it was introducing the show. So I waited for the next song.

Which was the latest single Day In, Day Out. I didn't mind that one, but to be honest I much preferred the flipside of the single, Julie. Regardless, it only made sense that he would play the new single early in the set, that's often what happens at shows, it's a way to keep the audience pumped and I've since seen it done hundreds of times. Admittedly it was kind of flabby live, but, ummmm, well, it's never really been one of his best songs so I was willing to forgive the flabbyness.

By this point it was getting pretty cold up in the bleachers. The sun had gone down and the wind had been blowing in off the lake, and we were about ten or fifteen stories off the ground, so it made for a rather uncomfortable experience. I was glad that I had a hoodie, but it was getting pretty chilly...

By the third song I knew something was wrong. Bang Bang was an Iggy Pop song that Bowie had covered on "Never Let Me Down" and it's one of the least objectionable parts of the album and gets delivered with a certain flare that honours the original. Live, it was weak. And it was made even worse by Bowie pulling a fan out of the audience who proceeded to be this amazing dancer and ended up performing throughout the show. And that pissed me off. It wasn't a spontaneous moment, she wasn't a random person from the audience that just happened to be a really awesome dancer, she was a plant that was part of the show, something staged to create the illusion of coolness. That same amazing dancer got pulled up on stage every night, and the spontaneity of the moment, the excitement of being drawn into Bowie's world? Lies. Cheap and manipulative lies.

That's the point where I started to get disappointed. And as the night wore on, it got steadily colder and the show got steadily worse, until eventually I was actually quite sad and hurt. It wasn't just the fact that Bowie was pandering to the audience with weak versions of songs that didn't mean anything to me. It was the fact that there was no heart in what he was doing. There was no connection between the songs he was playing that night and the music I had listened to for all those years that had helped define who I was. This show was Cheap Theatre. Worse, it was Cheap Vegas Theatre, faux style without substance played in a stadium where any detail and nuance were being lost on the audience because of the vast space between us all.

But of course, sometimes you just have to see the worst, so I stayed. And I sat through more songs that didn't mean anything to me like Absolute Beginners and Never Let Me Down. I sat through a version of China Girl that had been sucked dry of any sensuality, a bloated version of Rebel Rebel that stumbled and fell where other live versions I'd heard on record strutted and posed, a version of Let's Dance that completely ignored it's apocalyptic undertones, and a lacklustre run through Fame that was filled with ridiculous dance moves. The lyrical irony of that last one wasn't lost on me. 

It should be noted though that not everything about the show was crap. There were a few songs and a handful of shining moments that made it almost interesting, and a couple that were actually pretty awesome. As stated earlier, I'm quite fond of Loving the Alien, and it was given an interesting live take here. I was impressed by the selection of All the Madmen and Big Brother (including a reworked Chant of the Ever-Circling Skeletal Family) which were surprising choices for a tour that was so hits driven. Sons of the Silent Age was a nice addition to the set list as well (though I found the whole rubbery dance piece associated with it kind of distracting). Best of all, there was a great version of Fashion where Bowie was literally thrown across the stage by the dancers in a primitive take on Edouard Locke's manic dance style, culminating with him ending up perched on a scaffold where he sang Scary Monsters while the dancers and band made scary faces amid a steady pulse of strobe lights. Definitely Fashion and Scary Monsters were the highlight of the night for me, raw, passionate, and so much more true than anything else that had been played that evening. And in some ways that made the experience better, but in other ways it also made things worse because those few brief moments of goodness emphasized how very much I disliked the rest of the show.

There was an encore of Blue Jean and Modern Love, and the night that I saw the show Bowie didn't play Time with the metal wings that have been immortalized in so many pictures from that tour. And as the lights came up Anton and I made our way out of the Stadium, through the crowds, across the parking lot to the subway platform where we waited with 69,998 other people to get home. I was pretty miserable. I felt disappointed, I felt ripped off, and worst of all I felt like David Bowie had let me down.

I thought about it a lot, and it eventually dawned on me that the show was lacking in passion and enthusiasm. And really, passion and enthusiasm are at the heart of any performance. Maybe it was just this show, maybe it was the whole tour, but it very much seemed like Bowie was just going through the motions, like he had lost any connection with the reality of his fans (i.e., ME) and what his music meant to them. The show I saw wasn't about making art or magic or anything cool that mattered in my mind, it just seemed so obviously to be a pretentious grab for cash on the back of his previous artistic success. It was sooooooo disappointing and so upsetting, and in many ways I felt betrayed by that disconnection.

It was pretty devastating, and I spent the rest of the summer pretty bummed out in that particular angsty way that only teenagers and music obsessives can feel, and being both at the time I was hit doubly hard with the angst. But eventually I got over it. I can't remember when it happened, a couple of months later maybe, but eventually I went back to all the albums I had listened to so many times before and found that the music was just as good as I remembered, and it still made me smile the same way it had before. I may have been disappointed by the Glass Spider Tour, but I still appreciated Bowie's music, and that's an appreciation and enjoyment that have stayed with me to this day.

Friday, August 20, 2021

August 20th 1993, Catherine Wheel and Slowdive at Lee's Palace

 

This show was one of those brilliant pairings, an excellent evening of Shoegaze bliss from two of my favorite bands from the 90s. I have no idea who came up with the idea of putting them both on the same bill but it was a pretty inspired choice.

Slowdive were magnificent that night. I had only recently gotten into them at the time with the release of "Souvlaki" so it was a great time for me to see them, right when I was most curious about finding out more about them. They played a shorter opening set but they were still magical, with the interstellar overdrive of Souvlaki Space Station and the jangly Pop perfection of Alison standing out as highlights. 

Catherine Wheel were touring for "Chrome" so they were wearing white outfits and the stage was awash with blue lights in keeping with the visual aesthetic of the album. Some would argue that Catherine Wheel were a bit too heavy to be considered Shoegaze, but their sweeping and space-y effected guitar sound totally earned them that distinction in my mind. It should come as no surprise that their take on Black Metallic that night was stunning and beautiful, a sweeping grandeur that I wish you could all hear for yourselves.

It was a great show and a great night. Often I try to weave in a story with these posts trying to share something more about me or about life or whatever, but sometimes it's just about remembering a great night, and that's all it needs to be. This is one of those posts, just remembering a pair of excellent performances by a pair of excellent bands...

Tuesday, August 17, 2021

August 17th 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, and 2019, Roger Waters, Bryan Ferry, Stevie Nicks, Sinead O'Connor, and Actors


 

 
 

It feels like August 17th is an especially good day for concerts in Toronto. Over the years I've seen shows by Roger Waters, Bryan Ferry, Stevie Nicks, Sinead O'Connor, and Actors, all on August 17th. Maybe there's some kind of celestial musical convergence that happens every year on that day? Or maybe it's just coincidence. Either way, August 17th stands out as having been the date of some pretty great shows that I've been to.

On August 17th 1987 I saw Roger Waters at Kingswood Music Theatre, and Waters used the radio and DJ themes from his "Radio KAOS" album as a framework to play songs from his solo career along with a bunch of Pink Floyd classics like Welcome to the Machine, Money, Have a Cigar, Not Now John, and a suite of songs from "The Wall". I remember being really struck by the theatricality of everything, the way the whole show was planned out, choreographed, organized in a way that was very different from any of the concerts that I'd been to before. It was an incredible conceptual approach to live music that was different from anything I had seen to that point in my life. Awesome stuff...

On August 17th 1988 I saw Bryan Ferry in support of the "Bete Noire" album and it was just as slick and elegant as you would expect. Ferry looked amazing in a black suit with paisley lapels, suave and sophisticated as he ran through a collection of his own work and Roxy Music classics. He had particularly good hair that tour, gelled but still a bit bouncy, hair that was well suited for songs like The Bogus Man and Love is the Drug. The highlight of the show was an apocalyptic version of In Every Dream Home a Heartache where Ferry sang the opening verses over a sparse synth line while a spiral of white light slowly spun on the backdrop behind the band. It was hypnotizing, mesmerizing, absolutely enthralling, and the music swelled and the band launched into a manic frenzy for the outro. It was a truly beautiful moment, and I'm kind of breathless just thinking about it.

Seeing Stevie Nicks on August 17th 1989 was amazing. She was touring for "The Other Side of the Mirror" and she performed a solid set of songs that spanned her solo albums and her time with Fleetwood Mac. It was a pretty great show with some awesome highlights including a long drawn out version of Edge of Seventeen where the band stretched out some of the instrumental segments, making an already epic song into something magnificent. I've seen her a couple of times since then, and she's always delivered great performances, but this show at the CNE Grandstand was particularly excellent, particularly powerful, with her voice in fine form and her command of the audience exceptional.

Sinead O'Connor's show at the CNE Grandstand on August 17th 1990 was a revelation, a shockingly amazing performance by an incredible talent. In the space of three years she had gone from playing club gigs to the Grandstand, which was a testimony to both her incredible talent and to how her music had captured the imagination of such a large audience. This tour was in support of  her second album "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" so the set list drew from that and her debut "The Lion and the Cobra", and if you're familiar with those albums and all of the magic and wonder therein then you'll be pleased to know that she was able to recreate and even surpass that greatness in a live setting. She had an impeccable control of her voice, a fantastic ease and confidence in delivery, and her version of Troy that night gave me shivers.

Actors' gig at the Garrison on August 17th 2019 was excellent, a triple bill with Mary and TRAITRS. The Garrison is a great place to see a show, a great room that holds about three hundred people so it's a perfect spot to see a band up close, to really surround yourself with the music. Actors played an especially solid set that evening, drawing heavily from their debut "It Will Come to You", including really strong versions of Crystal and Bury Me which are my two favorite tracks from the album, so that was kinda nice. I have a ticket for Actors at the Horseshoe in September and I'm really excited to get back to seeing concerts and to hearing them play their new material live. Judging from the strength of the new songs I think that it's gonna be another great show...

So what is it about August 17th that brings out so many shows? I'm not really sure. A cynic may argue that it's just coincidence, that it's a warm summer day that's perfect for outdoor concerts, that it's a time when lots of artists are in the midst of their summer tours. And that may all be true but I'd also like to think that there's something more happening here, that maybe there's some kind of synchronicity or musical alchemy at play. Whatever it is, I look forward to many more August 17th concerts in the years to come...

Saturday, August 7, 2021

August 7th 1991, Lollapalooza '91 at CNE Grandstand

 

It may sound sort of cheezy, but Lollapalooza is kind of a dream come true. Inspired by European weekend festival events like Reading and Glastonbury, Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction envisioned a similar touring show that would bring together a variety of bands from a wide range of genres and styles in a space that would also encourage audience members to engage with community and social interest groups. It was a pretty lofty plan filled with idealism and optimism, but against all odds he made it happen and the resulting Lollapalooza Festival would became a recurring touring phenomenon that would go on to play a major part in defining the nineties' musical terrain.

With a lineup that included Ice-T, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Nine Inch Nails, Henry Rollins, Living Colour, and the Butthole Surfers, 1991's first Lollapalooza was also designed as a farewell tour for Jane's Addiction who had decided to pack it in after the release of their ground-breaking "Ritual de Los Habitual" album. It was an odd grouping of artists, who on the surface had little in common in terms of sound, but were all being packaged and marketed under the umbrella term "Alternative" by a record industry that were having trouble keeping up with the wide range of musical styles that were expanding and growing in the early nineties. In addition, while all of the artists individually had a solid following, none of them at the time were capable of filling the large 15,000+ seat venues that the tour was being booked at on their own, but together the tour was able to draw an audience for each of them, simultaneously filling up seats and hopefully inspiring audience members to leave the show with a new appreciation for some of the artists that they may not have been as familiar with before. Maybe an Ice-T fan would be inspired to check out Siouxsie and the Banshees after seeing them live, or maybe a Nine Inch Nails fan would end up being really impressed by Living Colour. Farrell anticipated a synergy between artists, reasoning that the quality of the performers would translate into shared interests. And his reasoning proved quite sound.

It was a pretty amazing idea, and it turned out to be a pretty amazing show too. Butthole Surfers were raucous and over the top, a chaotic revelry. Henry Rollins was intense and brooding and really heavy in a good way. Ice-T played an awesome set of his solo work, and then he introduced his new heavy rock project Body Count and proceeded to tear everybody's shit up with a perfect synthesis of Rap and Metal, definitely one of if not THE best performance of the day.

Admittedly Nine Inch Nails may not have been that well suited for a sunny middle of the afternoon set, nor was the space that conducive to dry ice, but they tried damnit, and that's what's important. If nothing else their road crew deserves special notice for keeping the set going amid all the chaos and destruction that Trent Reznor was leading throughout their performance. Living Colour were great, tight, dynamic, and really fun, and I remember being really impressed with Corey Glover's voice that day, strong, clear, and amazing. Siouxsie and the Banshees were the band that I was most excited about seeing, and they played a great set that drew heavily from the just released "Superstition" album along with a trio of tracks from "Peepshow" and a handful of fan favorites. In my mind the Banshees could do no wrong in a live setting, and this show was no exception.

And then Jane's Addiction closed out the show, a veritable supernova that burned with a staggering immensity, a behemoth, a titanic performance that few could match. Seeing Three Days live was pretty monumental for me, and though I've seen it performed a handful of times since, it was this time at Lollapalooza that really stands out as the definitive, trippiest, best version for me, the most awesome that I've ever heard it played.

The inaugural Lollapalooza event was an amazing show, an incredible day of music from a fantastic line up of artists, the full realization of Perry Farrell's dream of a touring festival. I won't deny, it was physically challenging, almost twelve hours of music outside in the sun during a heatwave in August is a bit much to take, but it was all worth it. Soooooooo worth it...

Friday, August 6, 2021

August 6th 1994, Nine Inch Nails at Molson Park in Barrie

 

I've made a few posts about Nine Inch Nails recently, but at the risk of repeating myself I think that it would be an oversight not to mention their show at Molson Park in Barrie on August 6th 1994. Sharing the bill with Soundgarden, this was the Toronto stop on the first leg of the tour to support "The Downward Spiral", and it was spectacular. Where earlier performances I had seen showed an incredible potential in the band, this show saw all of that potential realized in an outstanding set that was mind-blowing from start to finish. 

I don't think I can really do this show justice in terms of a description, I don't really have the vocabulary to fully put into words the immensity of what was happening on stage, but I can tell you that this tour was a significant turning point in Trent Reznor's career in terms of his reputation and recognition as a performer, as an artist, and as a visionary. Over the course of an hour and a half he channeled equal parts rage and alienation, anger and isolation, desperation and maybe even a little bit of hope too, all of it delivered from the edge of a deep, dark, nearly bottomless abyss. In the years to come, Reznor would be able to tame that side of himself and channel those feelings into his work more effectively, more succinctly, and more artistically but there's no question that this era in his career he was delivering raw, intense, and emotional performances that stand as some of the best he would ever do.

A week after the show in Barrie, Nine Inch Nails would perform pretty much the same set at the Woodstock '94 event and that performance gained them a lot of well-deserved recognition and praise. You can find video from the Woodstock show quite readily on YouTube and I really encourage you to check it out if you haven't already seen it. With the exception of all the mud, Nine Inch Nails' set at Woodstock pretty much perfectly captures all of the same energy and intensity of the show they played in Barrie, and I'm sure you'll agree that it's an especially spectacular moment in the history of an especially spectacular artist...

Thursday, August 5, 2021

August 5th 1992, Lollapalooza '92 at Molson Park in Barrie

 

Lollapalooza '92 was held at Molson Park in Barrie, and the shift from a seated venue where the first event was held really opened up the festival aspects of it, offering more opportunities to wander and explore the space and bringing it more in line with the European festivals that the tour was modeled after. It was a great day out and a great opportunity to see a bunch of bands, but for me it was all about Lush.

Their set was first, shortly after the gates opened up a little after noon. A hot sun beat down on a crowd that had gathered by the stage staking out spaces mostly for other bands later on in the lineup, but I was totally there for Lush and I thought that they played a perfect set of kaleidoscopic Shoegaze bliss. As great as their own set was though, it was a later guest spot with one of the other bands that really stands out for me as the highlight of the day, a single song that stands as one of my favorite concert moments ever. 

Ministry were the second headliner on the bill, and had been touring on the strength of the "Psalm 69" album, so they would have probably been at the peak of their mainstream popularity at the time with a sound that appealed to both the Goth/Industrial members of the crowd and the growing Grunge audience. They were putting on a pretty awesome show that included a lot of heavy and aggressive tracks, and around mid-way through the set they started the rolling bass rumble that opened So What and Al Jourgensen introduced Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson from Lush, who took the stage and rocked out with the band for the rest of the song. Miki played a flying V guitar, thrashing out appropriately, and there were blazing lights, and there was fire, and the vocals weren't so much screams as they were rabid Banshee wails, and the guitar and drums formed this huge Wall of Noise, and right in the centre of all of it were Miki and Emma from Lush playing guitar and having the time of their lives making this apocalyptic noise with Ministry. 

It was sooooooo fuckin' awesome...

Miki and Emma and Ministry were locked in a pretty solid nightmare groove on that song for about ten minutes and then it was over, but those ten minutes remain among the best I've ever seen in all the concerts I've ever been to, a perfect example of where seemingly disparate musical elements blended seamlessly together to create a spectacular awesomeness that would have been previously unimaginable. 

I could tell you more about the show, I could tell you about other bands that played that day, about wandering through the Village, about the Jim Rose Circus Side Show, about lining up for pizza and bathrooms, about the rise of Grunge, and just the sheer joy of being in a field watching bands with thousands of other people, but really all of those moments pale by comparison to the sheer magnitude of Miki and Emma from Lush playing with Ministry. That is my single best memory of Lollapalooza '92, and it will stay with me forever...

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

August 4th 1992, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at The Spectrum

Nick Cave is an artist who's inspired an intensely strong following, an appreciation built on a solid foundation of poetic lyrics and intense performance. He has a way of interacting directly with his audience in an intimate manner that creates a powerful bond between artist and fan, and as a result seeing a Nick Cave show isn't just about seeing a show, it's also about making a connection.

The first time that I ever saw Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds live was at the Spectrum in 1992 with my friends Dave B. and Jodi. It was on the tour for "Henry's Dream" and it was a pretty intimate space in comparison to some of the gigs that I'd see him do in the years to come, a club gig with only a few hundred people. From the moment that the band hit the stage they grabbed everybody's attention with a fiery version of "Papa Won't Leave You Henry", Cave at centre stage in a tight black suit moving with a long-limbed insectile grace and an intensity that I've rarely seen in a performer before or since. There was a charisma and intensity in that performance that was spellbinding, you couldn't look away because his draw was so strong, so powerful. 

Over the course of the next hour and a half Cave played a set that was made up largely of songs from "Henry's Dream" along with a handful of classics from earlier albums, and the entire audience was completely entranced for the whole length of the show. The pacing was up and down all evening long with the band alternating between spiraling heights of manic energy and quiet passages of great beauty and wonder. There was a haunting version of John Finn's Wife, and a near apocalyptic version of From Her to Eternity. They closed the set with an explosive cover of Black Betty, and in hindsight I can't imagine it could have ended any other way. As we left the venue it didn't feel like we had seen a concert so much as we had had a revelation.

Throughout the show Cave had a way of reaching out to the audience in some of the quieter passages as if to establish a greater connection with us more grounded in the physical, and while I know that dozens, hundreds, thousands of other artists have done that before and after, there was a feeling of great honesty when he did it, something genuine and real. Since that show at the Spectrum I've seen Nick Cave a number of times and he continues to stretch out his hands, and in recent years even walk out into the audience, removing the space between he and the crowd in a sincere effort to make contact both physically and emotionally. I think that honesty, that genuineness is at the heart of Cave's relationship with his fans, and I'm sure that many of them would say the same thing. Nick Cave's audience may be built on a foundation of poetry and intensity, but it's that sincere and honest contact he offers that sets him apart from other artists and inspires such devotion.

Sunday, August 1, 2021

August 1st 1987, The Cure at CNE Grandstand

The Cure released "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me" in the summer of 1987, a sprawling double album that spanned a gamut of styles ranging from dizzying pop thrills to manic Goth anthems that stand among the band's best work.  The opening line "Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, your tongue's like poison..." perfectly captures the spirit of the album, the dichotomy that separates the sheer pop perfection of Why Can't I be You? and Just like Heaven from the dark brooding intensity of Icing Sugar and The Snakepit. It's an amazing album that rightfully saw the band jump from mid-level alternative cult status to stadium filling MTV stars, and while it's not my favorite Cure release ("Pornography" and "Disintegration" regularly compete in my head for that title...), it will always hold a special place in my heart as the Kissing Tour was the first time that I ever saw The Cure live.

My friend Dave and I were big fans of The Cure, so we both got pretty excited when CFNY announced a show at CNE Grandstand, but along with that excitement there was also a certain amount of nerves, because it meant that we would have to get tickets first. This was long before the internet was a thing, so there were only two options to get tickets, either calling in by phone or lining up at an outlet. At the time calling in was distinctly impractical, there was a very real probability you could get a repetitive stress injury from repeatedly dialing your parent's rotary phone trying to get through to buy tickets, so we decided that lining up at an outlet was the best way to go. Plus there was a certain cache to lining up for a concert, it was an opportunity to hang with like-minded people who were all into the same music that we were, and hanging around with people that like the same music is always cool.

If memory serves me correctly, tickets went on sale at the end of June around exam time. I'm pretty sure that Dave had a test that morning, so I went and lined up on my own. Admittedly I wasn't so hard-core that I lined up a week in advance to buy tickets like other people I know, I really couldn't get into the idea of camping out in a sleeping bag for a week (I loath camping), and most malls with ticket outlets made a point of keeping line ups out back by the trash compactors for fear that desperate concert-goers might scare away shoppers. The combined threat of camping plus trash compactors was enough to keep me at bay for a while, but the day that tickets went on sale I made sure to get up at dawn and ride the bus out to the mall so I could line up with all the bleary-eyed campers who smelled vaguely of garbage. My plan paid off and I was sixth in line, so, y'know, I got to hang with other fans for a few hours talking about Cure B-sides, I got decent tickets to the show, AND I didn't smell nearly as bad as everybody else. Win Win Win for Team Rik and Dave!

As is typically the case, the months between getting tickets and actually seeing The Cure dragged on and on and on and on, but our interest in the show was maintained by Lee Carter, the British radio host of Live in London, a show that was broadcast every Thursday evening on CFNY. Lee Carter was very much in the know about music, most importantly about the music that I wanted to know about, and I listened every week to his soothing British accent telling me about the latest single by Depeche Mode or new music from Siouxsie and the Banshees or, y'know, whatever. And over the months leading up to the show, he talked at great length about the release of "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me" and the supporting tour which had already been winding it's way through Europe. Thanks to Lee Carter our excitement was maintained over the weeks leading up to the show with news items about how the band were only playing songs from the new album on this tour, about how they were playing the whole album, and how they had a new keyboard player with them to fill out their sound. Not a lot of details, but enough that it kept our anticipation going through the summer until August 1st finally came and Dave and I were headed to the show. Along the way to the Grandstand we joked about worst case scenarios knowing that they were only playing songs from a select portion of their catalog, coming to the conclusion that the worst thing that could happen would be that the band would just play Catch over and over for two hours (Catch is undoubtedly the worst Cure song ever), or even better (worse?) an extended two hour long version of Descent (arguably the second worst Cure song ever).

We arrived at the Grandstand about five minutes before the show started, and just as we got to our seats (low down in the stands on the right side), a video started to play across a white screen that obscured the stage, building on the visual theme of the album with shots of eyes and mouths, and mouths and eyes, and mouths in eyes, and eyes in mouths, and mouths, and eyes, and mouths and eyes. The images started moving faster, mouth, eye, mouth, eye, mouth, mouth, eye in mouth, eye, mouth in eye, mouth, eye, eye, eye, mouth, mouthmoutheyemouthmoutheyemoutheye, and then with a drawn out cry of "Kisssssssss meeeeeeeee!" the curtain fell to reveal the band on stage playing the opening notes of The Kiss and it was electrifying. Bathed in a mixture of orange lights and shadows they played the hell out of that song, a grinding wall of sound that was both inspiring and terrifying, a mind-blowing performance that was well worth the price of the ticket by itself. I would have been content and satisfied if that was the only song that they played that night, but when it was done they kept going! After The Kiss, the band switched up the order of the album a little bit, opting to play Torture next rather than the dreaded Catch, and following that with the spiraling fuzz of All I Want and surprising the audience with A Japanese Dream, the brilliant bass driven B-side from the Why Can't I be You? single. And after reaching such lofty and impressive heights they finally played Catch and I opted to go to the bathroom so I wouldn't have to miss any of the other songs that I really wanted to hear.

As expected, the show progressed through the "Kiss Me..." album, with great versions of Just Like Heaven, Hot Hot Hot!!!, Like Cockatoos, and it was all quite awesome. About halfway through the set they made a liar out of Lee Carter by playing a great version of The Walk,  all shivery synths and percolating drums. A few more songs from "Kiss Me..." followed, and then a wave of dry ice filled the entire stage, a beautiful soupy fog slowly creeping across the floor seats and into the stands during the opening bars of A Forest. I've come to learn that A Forest is always a highlight in The Cure's set, often building on the original album version of the song with some nice improvised jams. The performance that night in Toronto was no exception, with the band playing an especially awesome and drawn out rendition...

What else? I think "A Forest" was the end of the set proper though I'll defer to Dave if he thinks otherwise, and then they dug into the back catalog to play a couple of encores. Close to Me had some fish videos which were pretty appropriate, they played the "Three Imaginary Boys" mini set that often closes their shows, and they saved Why Can't I be You? for the last song of the evening. 

All in all, it was a particularly great opportunity to see one of my favorite bands for the very first time, even if they did play Catch. Since that night I've gone to about twenty shows by The Cure, and while I've seen them do far better gigs than this one (and admittedly a few that were far worse), in many ways this will always be the most special in my mind because it was the first time that I ever saw them. Much like that first Depeche Mode show I went to the year before, seeing The Cure in 1987 helped me develop a particular appreciation for live music and dry ice that stays with me to this day...