The following Thursday was the Sloan gig, at reputedly vancouver's best live music venue, The Commodore Ballroom on Granville Street. This one of a number of venues on the 'entertainment strip' that has survived and evolved from the hey-day of vaudeville theatre and 50's rock-n-roll dance nights, and reinvented itself as a premiere live music venue.
Sloan hail from Halifax in far eastern Canada, an area once pegged as the next Seattle for all the grunge-pop music coming from the area, and have been around since before Kurt Cobain loaded up his shotgun. They are one of Canada's most enduring and beloved acts. And for good reason - they do, indeed, rock! I was way up the front, and with my camera (of course) got some cool pics of the band strutting thier stuff. Their most famous song "if it feels good, do it" (my personal mantra?) was left til last, and while getting some video of the song, i got a tap on the shoulder from a security guy and summoned to the stage office. The band manager seemed none-too-pleased that I was video-ing the song, apparently thinking that I was a professional photographer out to make a few bob from the pics and video. Sometimes it doesn't pay to have such a high-end camera.
Sloan at The Commodore Ballroom...
In the end he let me go, footage in tact, when i convinced him that i was just a backpacker and a keen amateur, but i'd missed most of my fave song because of it.
That same night, The Sadies were playing at another venue just a few blocks away, and i was told by a local girl, Mel, that I was not to miss this show. And that she would also be there.So i hot-footed over to The Red Room only to find that they'd been on for more than an hour and were just about to start the encore. I convinced the door-staff to let me in for free. And the band then treated us to a 45 minute encore!
The local weekly free street press gig-bible, the Georgia Straight, had also done a write up of this band, which also had me intrigued. Here's an excerpt:
"It's hard to say what we love most about The Sadies. The fact that singer-guitarist and chain-smoking all-round bad-ass Dallas Good looks like he buys his suits from the late Hank Williams is a good start...the Toronto quartet mixes and mashes genres with vicious abandon, spiking its rebel-yell alt-country with shots of Dick Dale surf, post-80's hardcore, and paisley splattered underground folk...The Sadies spend 50 weeks or so of the year stinking and sweating in a claustrophobic van, meaning they are willing to truly suffer for their art. Smell the magic..." Need I say more! They leaned more to the country rockabilly this night, and were entertaining as hell!
Next, on the Friday was Snow Patrol, from Dublin/Belfast/Glasgow - a bit of a Celtic supergroup in their homeland, and a band I came to love while in Dublin, seeing them live in my final weeks there in a sweaty theatre, mixing with the locals way down the front. I wasn't going to miss them again, and went with my pal Ginny, who unfortunately was suffering with flu. Hence, we took seats in the upper balcony, right down the front, a blessing in disguise really.
Snow Patrol at the Vogue Theatre...
This vantage point gave us a an awesome view over the crowd and the band down below, and the incredible lighting show they put on accompanying the sounds, helped make for an exhilarting atmosphere - and great photos! I also nervously video-ed one song (Spitting Games) at the beginning of the set, altho there was no security to hamper my efforts this time.
When the entire audience sang along to the final strains of mega-single "Run", it was superb. Lead singer Gary Lightbody was clearly overwhelmed by this, his cheeky smile beaming from ear to ear.
What a great couple of nights.
Tony
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