Friday 21 July 2023

review: Nickel Creek - "Celebrants" tour at Danforth Music Hall in Toronto


You'd think Chris Thile would be satisfied being our generation's finest interpreter of Bach.


But he's also part of two mighty prolific Grammy-winning progressive bluegrass bands, the Punch Brothers and Nickel Creek. The latter act performed at Toronto's Danforth Music Hall on Wednesday night after nearly 20 years' absence from the city. Part way through "Green and Gray," Thile giggled to himself at the lyric "He's doing fine with his notebook and Discman," quipping "that's how long it's been" before continuing with the next line.


Following the song, he and the audience agreed that the Walkman perfected anti-skip protection long before its compact disc counterpart. Musicians of this calibre often aren't this funny or personable. And perhaps this explains their longevity as much as the quality of their songwriting and talent.




Nickel Creek was formed by Thile and master violinist Sara Watkins in the late '80s when they were both eight years old, along with Watkins' older brother Sean on guitar. There aren't many of us who can say their childhood bands found superstardom. Theirs has sold 1.5 million albums, and their audience is more than loyal.


The band has largely been on hiatus for the last decade, so this show saw them met with a rapturous welcome from the appreciative crowd of 1500 devotees. Songs from previous albums were greeted like old friends, and new songs from their latest effort Celebrants were cherished in complete silence. Except for the solos. Every solo, even twenty songs into the night, was cheered as if they were rounding third base and about to score the winning run.


Augmented by Jeff Picker on double bass, the quartet played a nearly two-hour set that oscillated between virtuosic and playful. Thile, now 42, marvelled at one point at the fact that he and his bandmates were adults. "Thinnest Wall," a song about an argument between two romantic partners, saw Thile managing to make his mandolin sound angry for a brief moment, ensuring none of the proceedings were deemed too serious for too long. This ensemble does not lose sight of music's ultimate purpose: to bring joy to a world always in need of more of it.


The songs about relationships made way for the topical songs. "21st of May" was about the latest rapture, told from the perspective of an eschatological preacher, which of course is hilarious because the rapture is something that should happen only once, not once per decade.


"Given my platform here, I'd be remiss not to get political," said Thile during this section, in an ostensibly serious moment. He kept a straight face while explaining that the United States Coast Guard has been eliminating lighthouses from government inventory these past few years, as GPS technology has largely rendered them obsolete. Considering the current political climate, this introduction to their song "The Lighthouse's Tale" was a moment of levity in what could easily have turned into a much more serious affair. To those who wish for music to be escapism, they breathed a sigh of relief. But soon after the band managed to have an audience of largely non-musicians clap their hands in bars of six beats instead of the usual four, Thile joked that he's moving to Canada. Anyone listening carefully enough knows well he wasn't just speaking about the poutine.




Nickel Creek's Kung fu isn't just their technical prowess, although that alone could have just as easily sustained them as a musical force for this long. There is no shortage of brilliant musicians with audiences almost entirely consisting of musicians. But this band plays for everyone. And even those who aren't musicians can still somehow comprehend that there are so few people who have ever lived that can play music at the level that these players now in their forties can with such ease and interminable joy. It's truly a rare feat.


Their vocal harmonies were ethereal, and there was even occasional choreography on stage. The visuals deserve a mention too, as the backdrop almost looked like a cross between a barn and the inside of a cathedral, which was more than appropriate. For those of us who haven't set foot in a church since their first communion, we still felt completely at home.


Seamless transitions between songs were made possible by the band's erudite tech who was at the ready to swap out their instruments as necessary, and even once during a song, where a guitar part moved from one musician to another as the change was made—truly a sight to behold. Thile went through multiple mandolins and even a bouzouki, while Sean Watkins played multiple guitars as well. Sara also played guitar on the final piece of the night, "Holding Pattern."




Every song had different lighting. The Handelian word painting has the lyric "holding" held for several beats, and the lighting also held itself in place to maximize the effect of the pregnant pause. As we were all filing out, I told their lighting tech how that last piece was beautifully lit. He was gracious, and said the feedback made his night. Being a tech is so often a thankless job, and they usually love it when such intricacies are highlighted to them. Like so many bands, Nickel Creek's techs are just as much a part of the family as the musicians.


The opening act was singer-songwriter Aoife O'Donovan, who delivered a set of seven mind-numblingly gorgeous pieces, the last of which was "Iowa," where she was joined by Juno Award-winning Toronto singer Donovan Woods. It was the kind of opening set that left you so satisfied that you almost forgot that there was still another two hours of music to come. Her last album, 2022's Age of Apathy, was nominated for a Grammy. It's not hard to see why.


O'Donovan's trio I'm With Her, which includes the aforementioned Sara Watkins as well as Sarah Jarosz, won a Grammy in 2019—proof that there is much exceptionally good music that is being appropriately recognized.


Nickel Creek is on tour through October, and Aoife O'Donovan is on many of the dates as well.


Tuesday 12 July 2022

review: Roger Waters - "This Is Not a Drill" at Scotiabank Centre in Toronto


The last time I saw Roger Waters was about a decade ago when he was touring a revamped version of The Wall. That show was brilliant.


This one was otherworldly.


At age 78 he refuses to rest on his laurels and has stepped up his game.


The show was prefaced with Roger delivering a public service announcement on tape—a disclaimer that "if you're one of those 'I love Pink Floyd, but I can't stand Roger's politics' people, you might do well to fuck off to the bar right now" to an enormous roar of approval.


Subtlety is not one Roger's strong points. People used to attend his shows and be surprised at its content. This is no longer the case, as his reputation for being outspoken about things near and dear to him is now solidified. No mountain is too high. No issue is too taboo. Everything is on the table.


The festivities began in dim lighting with a new somber arrangement of "Comfortably Numb," which was pretty appropriate as we are a whole lot more numb to so many things in 2022. The soaring guitar solo was replaced with mournful cries from one of his two backing vocalists. I couldn't tell which one, as she was obscured from my sight. The staging consisted of multiple double-sided video screens in the shape of a cross as seen from above, and at the end of the piece it slowly ascended with a pomp and circumstance not unlike the spacecraft in that iconic scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Before that moment, only half of the stage was visible to each audience member.


By the second song Roger made his appearance in the darkness amidst the familiar helicopter sample from the top of "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" that encircled the arena in surround sound. Floyd were pioneers of quadraphonic sound at their concerts in the early '70s, and it continues to be a staple of Waters' shows well into the 21st century.


Within seconds the scope of the production was clear—the songs we're well accustomed to were going to be about 5% of the experience, and the visuals will be 95%. Like a lot of arena shows, the massive production makes it more like Broadway than rock and roll, as the entire operation has to be automated to ensure everything happens at the exact right moments. But Roger's show takes this concept a step further, as it is a display of the Zeitgeist of our time.


The tour is dubbed "This Is Not a Drill." And this is not a nostalgia show—40 to 50 year old music has been reworked to be relevant to the world today.


In simple and direct language, these red words drew far more attention to the eye than the band:


US
GOOD
THEM
EVIL




At this point it became immediately clear that having a seat near the stage would not be an ideal position to be in. Being at least half way back is optimal so that one can see and process everything in real time.


This set design is undoubtedly the work of Roger, not a third party think tank or designer. This is his brainchild, and he is not a passenger on the bus. During rehearsals, longstanding band member Jon Carin called this show Waters' masterpiece.


There are fans of early Pink Floyd who have bowed out of seeing Roger this time around because he plays nothing from the first six albums. But when you see the overall production, you very quickly understand why. I love early Floyd as much as the next connoisseur, but it's the later material that best translates to this environment, and it's obviously the material most people know. The song selection is about 80% Floyd supplemented with a few tracks from his solo career. But even the less familiar pieces from recent years still resonated with the larger picture and helped create a cohesive piece—particularly "The Bravery of Being Out of Range," an overt commentary on world leaders who send others to fight their wars for them. This new and refreshing take of the Amused to Death track saw it transformed into a ballad, making for an even gloomier version for the lyrics to be front and centre.


Even though it is a Roger Waters show, he is not the star. The message is.


He debuted a new song for this tour called "The Bar." In his heartfelt banter prior to it he likened the room with about 19,000 friends to being like a bar, to create as much intimacy as possible amidst this monolithic production:


"This is not the bar that the drunks fucked off to at the beginning of the show. This is our bar. The bar in my fantasy world is a place where like-minded people can gather. Those of us who believe in truth and liberty and human rights. Where we can feel at home and exchange the love that we have in our hearts with one another."


But that levity was short-lived, as the continued plight of indigenous people in America was his next subject matter to tackle in "The Bar":


The girl who brought you in here is Lakota
From Standing Rock where they made their stand
So from 48's North Dakota here's a message for The Man
Would you kindly get the fuck off our land


It often seemed every second word on the screens and out of his mouth was "fuck," but however crass he may be, he's right about pretty well everything. And it only acted to endear him to the crowd, as we all swear, after all. In his case it adds that extra sense of urgency that otherwise wouldn't be as adequately expressed.


Roger's previous tour was heavily anti-Trump, but his current show is anything but partisan. The orange one was briefly shown once. Waters picked on everyone. He's doing God's work in showing how it isn't left vs. right—it's haves vs. have nots. He sees right through it all with laser precision. Bless him. Anyone and everyone who is part of the problem was in his crosshairs.


Throughout the proceedings Roger used his megaphone to highlight anything from income inequality to the hypocrisy of religion to war crimes (and the whistleblowers who expose them). The central theme of the show was "teach your children well," often reminding the viewer in one way or another to consider who is controlling the narrative of a particular issue at hand, and urging us to not get sucked into the vortex of ignorance compounded by the false sense of security that materialism claims to provide, especially now in this age of end stage capitalism we live in. His aim was to hammer home the (unfortunately still radical) idea that taking care of one another should not be seen as a political statement, but rather a humanitarian one.


For most people with their eyes already open it wasn't necessarily provocative, but nevertheless an extremely powerful experience of having a rock star being so finely attuned to the inequalities of the world, which was unthinkable decades ago. The young read about such issues daily on social media, so most of them don't need the education. But a fair portion of his core base of boomers absolutely do. Roger knows the power he carries.


The show continued with three tracks off Wish You Were Here. The one proper acknowledgement of Roger's previous life in Pink Floyd was a poignant segment dedicated to founding Floyd member Syd Barrett during the iconic title track (which David Gilmour was brushed from entirely). Sadly it seems the Live 8 reunion in 2005 was a small blip in the chronology, as their forty plus year old feud continues.




"Have a Cigar" was tuned down two steps to C-minor, making it sound even more sinister. Roger can still hit the high notes with authority, but not for two and a half hours. Some songs were detuned to preserve his voice, as the tour is over three months long. It didn't bother me in the least. Well over a decade into retirement age, it's amazing guys like him are doing this at all.


"Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI-IX)" was a welcome addition to the repertoire, having been absent for the last 20 years. It was performed with a surgeon's precision.


The first set ended with "Sheep" from the Animals album. A scathing take on people's passiveness to the calamities around them, it was made current by satirizing people who are attached to their Twitter accounts. It was especially effective during the scripture section, as those verses were displayed on the screens in a series of Tweets. This was one of many topical and extremely powerful moments of the evening.





Needless to say, his band and backing vocalists were spotless. During the jam at the end of the song, the band members lumped together and looked at one another with unbridled joy.




During intermission the trademark pig made its rounds, sporting not an inch of subtlety. Anything less would be off brand.



The second set began with a couple more pieces off The Wall, which paved the way for "Déjà Vu," one of his more recent compositions which was home to the next deeply moving segment of the show. Part way through the piece the words "human rights" appeared on the screens. The right side remained stationary while the left screen scrolled through "human," "equal," "refugee," "reproductive," "trans," and finally "Palestinian," each to rapturous applause.






It's probably the only thing Waters and Gilmour agree on these days.



If I had been God
With my staff and my rod
If I had been given the nod
I believe I could have done a better job


He does not mince words.


It takes a real man to say this.



"Is This the Life We Really Want?" is the title track of Waters' latest studio album released in 2017, showing he's still as lyrically sharp as he was in his youth:


The ants don't have enough IQ to differentiate between the pain that other people feel
And well, for instance, cutting leaves
Or crawling across windowsills in search of open treacle tins
So, like the ants, are we just dumb?
Is that why we don't feel or see?
Or are we all just numbed out on reality TV?
So, every time the curtain falls
Every time the curtain falls on some forgotten life
It is because we all stood by, silent and indifferent
It's normal


It's easy to get lost in the anger and frustration of the world on display if all you see is what's on the surface. But Waters smiled between songs far more than anything else. He is clearly a deeply caring, empathetic, and compassionate man, using his star power to do everything he can to make peace and justice a part of people's mental wallpaper. In less capable hands this show could have easily been sensory overload, but the pacing of the show was exquisite, designed to maximize mental and emotional impact in just the right doses.


The second set had a theme of humanizing individuals who have been victims of war, which continued into the Dark Side of the Moon section, which consisted of side two in its entirety. There is some overlap in the material Waters and Gilmour each cover from the Floyd canon in their shows, and in "Us and Them" they both use the same stock footage that they first used for their backdrop on tour in 1974—scenes of drone-like people mindlessly walking down the street in their work attire, at a reduced frame rate. But that's where the comparisons end. Gilmour's show is ethereal and soothing, while Roger's is visceral and challenging.


The stock footage then makes way for black and white images that were illuminated one by one—headshots of people who are ordinarily airbrushed out of the story as we become numb to war, but are instead each given their due. They slowly populate the screens into an eventual collage and cover it entirely, culminating in the transition into "Eclipse" where all the faces are suddenly replaced with a line of the triangular prisms from the iconic album artwork. The electrocardiographic heartbeat from the inside of the gatefold sleeve slowly comes to life one colour at a time, and all those faces soon progressively return as the song approaches its climax. It is performed as an extended version with the verse repeating a second time to double down on its impact. The lyrics of "Eclipse" encompass the range of possibilities in one's life, and juxtaposing these meaningful words with all of those faces and the image of a heartbeat so as to give a name to every one of them was deeply moving. If this spectacle did not reach any one of the 19,000 people on hand, I cannot possibly help them.




1983's The Final Cut was represented with "Two Suns in the Sunset," which Waters explained was about the Doomsday Clock counting down to nuclear Armageddon. It was set to 20 minutes before midnight when it was inaugurated in 1957, and it is now at 90 seconds. The video screen had evocative animations of nuclear war taking place.


A few extra verses of "The Bar" seamlessly blended into "Outside the Wall," where the band members were named on the screen as they prepared for their exit—something I've never before seen at a concert. After circling the stage Waters introduced them one at a time as they walked past him down the stairs. The last shot was of the entire ensemble just inside the corridor to the dressing room while finishing the song, and after Roger conducted the band to the final button, the lights went to black.




Within hours the videos were already being uploaded to YouTube, and as we know by now the comments section is where the cream of the crop of humanity tend to congregate:


"It's a concert for fuck's sake. Enjoy and shut up!!"


This completely misses the point. This isn't a concert. It is an event. And this isn't the kind of event that's merely "enjoyed." It's not throwaway conveyer belt product. It is art, and not all art meets that description. And this is one of those great works of art that transcends mere likes and dislikes to the realm of being interesting and transfixing. Some truths are meant to make us squirm a little in our seats.


"I go to concerts to be entertained and not have politics front and center. I get enough of that every day in the news. I do not need to go to a concert and have politics shoved in my face, whether it be left or right."


This is what Waters is up against—people who think musicians should be limited to providing mere entertainment, as if they are unqualified to do anything but play music.


A lot of Europeans scratch their heads at this breed of Americans and their culturally-driven desire for the media they consume to feel good, be passively enjoyed as a means of escapism, and require a happy ending. A Roger Waters concert is more like an bourgeois French film—a meticulously crafted thought-provoking piece designed to be purposely uncomfortable at times, and doesn't come to some kind of feel-good resolution, leaving the viewer in a completely different state from the one they walked in with. If they are able to return to their previous state with ease, then they probably weren't paying attention.


But to each their own. If people want a nostalgia show that doesn't make them think or feel much beyond "I remember when I lost my virginity to this song," go see the Eagles. Everyone wins.


The show took place on the day one of the three big telecom networks went down for the entire day, leaving roughly 1/3 of Canadians without internet access, many of whom scrambled to find Wi-Fi to open up their tickets on their phones. Waters was aware of this and held the show for an extra 15 minutes, resulting in it ending 15 minutes later than scheduled. The IATSE union representing the local crew members who help build and tear down the stage charges an overtime fee of $10,000 per minute, which means Waters coughed up $150,000 out of pocket to ensure as many people as possible didn't miss the first few songs. If this doesn't illustrate his character, I'm not sure what will.


Few artists come close to doing what Waters does, if any at all. It is fitting that the man who more or less invented the large-scale arena production remains a leader in his industry nearly 50 years later. Carin is right. This is his masterpiece. It was as if the combined presentation of his music and the imagery was the totality of his psyche, and he wants to share it with everyone while he still can.


Upon arriving home I bought a ticket for the second night. This is the first show that's ever made me want to be like a Deadhead and see every night of the tour. Even if it's the exact same show every night. It is that good, that effective, that uniting, and that edifying.


After this tour wraps up, it cannot and should not end there. This is a show that tribute bands need to put on for decades, the way The Musical Box does for Genesis. As long as the issues highlighted therein are unresolved, this work of art desperately needs to remain in public consciousness.


Amidst the mass exodus of happy concert-goers on Front Street, I overheard a fellow patron say "this is the closest I come to going to church."


I'm sure Waters shares that sentiment.


Saturday 19 February 2022

Dear society: Stop this insanity.


I just watched one of those Olympian profile spots. You know, the ones designed to be filler in between events, done with the best of intentions to tell the heartfelt stories of the athletes' journeys to the games. This particular one was a Canadian bobsledder speaking about her experience at the last Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, lamenting how she didn't medal in one of her events.



(AP Photo/Michael Sohn)


She solemnly and genuinely stated, I quote, "I felt like I'd let down my family, my friends, and my country."

I can't speak for your family and friends, but you didn't let me down because I hadn't even heard of you until twenty minutes ago.

This brand of well-meaning but ultimately misplaced patriotic language has always left me feeling a bit uneasy, not least because we now live in a world where we can ask an astronaut if they see borders on a space walk.

This is just the beginning of what deeply irked me about it. In fact, I've been irked about this kind of thing for half my life.


I remember watching the Salt Lake City games in 2002 when Canadian freestyle skier Jennifer Heil placed fourth. Many of the major newspapers the next day bore the headline "Oh, so close." Fair enough on first glance, not least because the distance between her fourth place finish and the podium was one one-hundredth of a point as deemed by the judges.



Fast-forward to the Vancouver games in 2010. On day two Heil won Canada's first medal in front of the hometown crowd. It was a silver. Guess what the headline from the major papers read?


"Oh, so close."


I wish I was joking.


Being second-best in the world at something is not good enough?


Even the official Freestyle Canada website reused the headline for this entry in their history of the sport.


Dear society:

Stop this insanity.


An article in the Edmonton Journal about Jennifer Heil addresses the many external pressures athletes face on the world stage. A kinesiology professor is interviewed, who suggests that "cluttering the mind with the expectations of others and the pressure that brings may not be an effective strategy. Own the Podium is about outcomes; own the moment is about process, which is the more effective pathway to success."

Wonderful. Sounds like a reasonable path to cherish the experience. But in the same article they also referred to Heil's second place finish as a defeat.

Are you kidding me? Being second-best is not even "close"—now it's a defeat?

Google the phrase "settled for silver" in quotes and you'll get about 325,000 results. Try "won silver" and you'll get 1.6 million. This means roughly one in five instances of speaking about being second-best in the world at something carries the implication of not being good enough.


Dear society:

Stop this insanity.


Tonight at the beginning of the bronze medal game in men's hockey, a commentator referred to it as "the game nobody wants to play in." Likewise, just before the bronze medal game in men's curling began, much of the chatter from the press box was about how this wasn't the game Canadian skip Brad Gushue was hoping to be participating in, treating the chance to be the third-best in the world at your chosen passion as a consolation match. They even went so far as to say it may not be a big deal for Gushue as he'd won Olympic gold before, barely stopping short of insisting the game should be taken lightly and played more for the two members of his team who'd never won an Olympic medal before.


No, no, NO.


Dear society:

Stop this insanity.


When someone is named high school valedictorian, they're treated like they've won an Olympic gold because they came in first place. This is obviously a marvellous achievement. But there are nearly 3,500 high schools in Canada, and each one has that top student. With 2.5 million students, that's about one in 700. And that's generous, as it's not even accounting for the sizeable portion of students without academic aspirations.

By contrast, there are an estimated 135 million skiers in the world. If you qualify amongst the top hundred or so in the world to be in the Olympics, you are literally one in a million. But if you finish in any position apart from number one, you're a failure.

And yet we wonder why athletes struggle with mental health issues?


Dear society:


Stop.

This.

Insanity.


It's fascinating that this kind of thinking exists concurrently with the "give every kid a participation trophy for having a pulse" mentality that permeates much of our society today. It's a bizarre dichotomy that effectively amounts to "if it's our kids (or the kids we're responsible for), let's make them feel great" existing alongside "if you're someone else's kid, you're dead to me unless you win."

From this humble soapbox, all I can ask as one tiny voice is that we seek a happy medium between these two extremes.

Perhaps we should rethink the language we use in individual sports. In team sports there are only two teams playing, whereby one team typically wins and the other loses. It makes sense in this context that winning and losing is framed in binary terms. But in individual sportsparticularly ones where dozens of athletes are racing against the clock, or especially relying on the input of judges who are prone to emotionally driven biases and various other forms of human errorit's not a clear cut winner/loser type situation. If whoever is in second place was "defeated," that means in an event with 50 competitors, 49 are considered defeated. But of course nobody actually says that, because everybody knows it's not true.

Going forward, let's try to remember that literally everyone who makes it to the Olympics is world class. Maybe it's time we steer the conversation in that direction and become more cognizant of this undeniable and remarkable fact while we pick apart the minutiae that separates the top 0.000001 and 0.000002 percentile of athletes. And maybe then we'll progress to a point where we won't have a 15-year-old girl having a complete meltdown on live TV because she was only the second-best in the world.


Dear society:

Stop this insanity.


Saturday 23 October 2021

review: Roger Taylor - "Outsider Tour" at Rock City in Nottingham


October 15, 2021.


This was my first gig as an attendee in nearly two years - the last one being The Darkness in 2019.


I never thought I'd see myself attending a solo gig by a Queen member. Such a thing hasn't happened since the '90s, and this part of their lives seemed to be in the rearview mirror. The anticipation leading up to the start of the gig was palpable amongst the 2,000 or so on hand as that reality set in.


(Niek Lucassen)


It was surreal to be in a room full of people singing every word of the title track from Strange Frontier. I haven't experienced that feeling since I saw Dweezil Zappa doing "I'm the Slime."


"You and me seen better times" - these words carried an extra layer of poignancy on this occasion for all the obvious reasons, but at the same time it just wasn't the case in that exact moment, as this is the best thing every one of us could possibly have been doing. The joy of being together with the man whose music means so much to us made it all null and void, even just for a couple wonderful hours.


Point blank, the band was killer - without question it's the best he's ever assembled. They were musically and vocally tight. The five of them smiled at one another throughout, and the elder statesman interacted with his band with the most genuine of joy. The backing vocals in the early Queen pieces like "Tenement Funster" and I'm in Love with My Car" were perfectly executed.


But it's the main man we all came to see. Roger is so unapologetically himself. He never looks fully comfortable as the frontman of a band, but at the same time he also looks like he'd rather be nowhere else. He wears his heart on his sleeve, just like the lyrics on every one of his solo albums. It's incredible he's still this good at 72, singing as well as he did 30 years ago. His drumming chops were in great shape too - far better than 2005 where he sometimes looked out of breath. He's taking much better care of himself now. Most of the old rock stars must have personal trainers and stylists, as they're looking and sounding better than they did in decades past. Aware of his limits, Roger sat down at his drum kit just twice - but both were eventful. These guys are well into retirement age, and we're lucky they're doing this at all.


The band did give him a break half way through, and the interlude of "Rock It (Prime Jive)" with wingman Tyler Warren on the lead vocal was quite possibly the highlight of the evening. Warren needs no introduction, and is absolutely a world class talent. He is unquestionably the best guy on the planet for the gig. He deserves it.


Christian Mendoza was excellent on guitar as well. On "Say It's Not True" it became clear that he was closer to Jeff Beck than Brian May, which is precisely why he's there. Roger doesn't want someone who plays like his old Queen bandmate - he wants someone who makes it his own and isn't too flashy. Mendoza is the perfect guy for the job.


Bassist Neil Fairclough has done the arenas and stadiums of the world with Brian and Roger, but he was just as happy to be in a club, playing spotlessly as always.


But it's Tina Hizon that was the secret sauce, playing four instruments. She was even on double duty, as Spike Edney wasn't on the gig because he was unwell. Roger mentioned how the musical director was at the hospital earlier that day, and near the end of the show to his surprise Spike came on in shorts and a t-shirt to play the last few songs. Hizon nailed Treanna Morris' part on "Surrender," and in my head all I could think was - this was clearly her audition piece. She was a dead ringer. A huge talent.


There was a moment of levity in "Foreign Sand." It's pretty well inarguably the most gorgeous song he's ever composed, but on this night after "just say hello" the crowd literally said hello, and he loved it, laughing his way into the next line. On each night of the tour henceforth the "hello" became more emphatic, and at the final gig in London it cracked Roger up, to which he quipped "it's meant to be serious!" in between lines.


The triumvirate of Roger, Tina, and Tyler on drums at the tail end of "Up" was a high point as well.






For the encore Roger came on sporting a shiny red cigar jacket, looking like a million bucks. They did two covers, and for Heroes the multi-instrumentalist Hizon played the Robert Fripp part on electric violin.


The only complaint is that the mix often wasn't great, as it was a bass trap up in the balcony. We couldn't even hear much of Roger's banter between songs, although the backing vocals were mixed well. A couple of my friends who didn't know most of the material weren't overly pleased, because the lyrics are a fair portion of what's on offer with Roger's earnest and often heartfelt compositions.


But for the most fervent of fans, the setlist was brilliant - songs spanning his solo career from all but one of his albums, as well as a fair chunk of the classics he wrote for Queen. I was thrilled to hear "A Nation of Haircuts" from Electric Fire, and the new tunes all sounded great too. I wish we could've heard something from Fun In Space, but Roger's vocal range isn't quite what it was 40 years ago, and his sense of self-awareness combined with his musical maturity had him assembling a band and a setlist perfect for 2021.


His first four solo albums are all criminally underrated (here's my review of the first two). It seems almost unfathomable that the drummer of the most popular of all the classic rock bands (if their sheer number of Spotify followers is an accurate enough metric to measure this) is playing clubs, but if anything that just amplified the feeling of intimacy. There was this feeling of "he's ours."


There was supposed to be an opening act, Colin Macleod, who is apparently quite good but didn't show for some reason. But honestly, after nearly two years of not being able to see a gig, two hours was the perfect length.


As we exited the venue there were a few hundred kids lined up for a rave. A few hours earlier it was people two to three times their age in that same formation. I hate to sound like an old man or a Luddite, but they had no idea what they were missing.


Sunday 5 September 2021

Roger Taylor: "Fun in Space" / "Strange Frontier" analysis


I recently revisited Roger Taylor's first two solo albums. They are pieces of music history that have barely been spoken about since they came out, and this piece aims to rectify that at least a little bit.


Fun in Space and Strange Frontier came out in the early- to mid-'80s when Queen were one of the biggest bands in the world, and apart from a Top of the Pops appearance and some moderate radio airplay of a couple singles, they soon disappeared without a trace. I'm going to argue that this turn of events is absolutely tragic. By the end of this piece I'm pretty sure you'll agree.




In April 1981 Roger Taylor became the first member of Queen to drop a solo album. Like few of his peers he wrote and played pretty well every part, as he's a more than capable multi-instrumentalist. I found side one of Fun in Space to be pretty solid, save for "Let's Get Crazy" which sounds a bit like an undeveloped idea. But the great tracks stand out. The energetic driving beat of "No Violins" is infectious, and it is cleverly textured throughout. The sentimental "Laugh Or Cry" is gorgeous yet sombre, complete with an emotive guitar solo with phrasing that would make Clapton raise an eyebrow.




But on this latest listen it was "Good Times Are Now" that stood atop the rest. Musically it's similar to "No Violins," but the subject matter is far more meaningful. Roger is often conversational in his lyrics, and rarely is he more down to earth and relatable than he is here:


I had to take a chance 'cause special moments only tend to happen now and then


Point blank, this is one of the best hooks I've ever heard. The syncopation of those words almost implies the urgency of needing to seize those rare moments when they present themselves. He goes on:


Live for the present, it's the only one we have
Nobody gets out of here alive
Life in the future might never come to pass
You know good times are now


Clichés they may be, but somehow he gets away with it and makes you feel like you're hearing such universal messages for the first time. The ensuing guitar solo in the middle sounds very similar to "Coming Soon" off Queen's The Game - but "Good Times Are Now" is considerably better because it actually has something to say. And it's this genuine sense of character that would permeate his next long player from start to finish.




In fan polls people regularly rate the Roger tracks on the Queen albums from 1978-82 as their least favourites of the era, and with good reason - I'm now fairly certain he was holding back his strongest material for his solo album, as the best tracks on Fun in Space are leaps and bounds better.


"My Country" tops any of his output on Jazz, The Game, or Hot Space. But it's understandable that it didn't end up on a Queen album, because it was too blunt and opinionated. It's a crying shame in hindsight, as the change in tempo and timbre when the gated drums kick in is no less effective than "In The Air Tonight." It also has one of the top vocal performances of Roger's career, easily on par with any of the most lauded rock vocals of all time. This should be known as one of the great war protest songs, but sometimes the world isn't so just. For any number of reasons, great art often falls through the cracks. "My Country"  is one of those casualties.


(Peter Hince)


As side two progresses it gets a bit weak in places, although "Airheads" has a badass and bone-crunching riff, and the title track is a unique and Eno-esque ambient new wave science fiction workout. Queen's famed "no synthesizers" label had gone the way of the Dodo the previous year, which Roger even made fun of in the liner notes. With the title track alone he unquestionably wins the race for the first member of Queen to find their identity outside of the confines of the band.


I give the album 3 1/2 stars. Ultimately about half of it is fantastic, which would be the case for the bulk of Roger's albums going forward.


Except for Strange Frontier.


Fun in Space has a few individually better songs and moments, but Strange Frontier is more consistent and cohesive. There's no one song that sticks out. It's not quite a concept album, but there's a uniformity to it and every track is part of the greater whole. And the running order is key.




We're off the tracks, we're off the lines
You and me have seen better times
Now we're on the borderline and I wish I wasn't here


A half minute into the album we're clearly hearing a far more developed artist.


We're trapped inside these dangerous times


The title track lays the groundwork for the nine-part story to follow, and "Beautiful Dreams" starts to get more specific. He speaks to the reality and ease of having dreams come true as children, but that later in life we need drugs (a secret world of "chemical dreams") to achieve the same state of bliss. But there's no solution except "nuclear purity," which is an idea very much of its time as the early '80s were the peak of the Cold War. There isn't a solution, so nuke us all. "This is the final twilight; this is the final cure, it seems." All delivered in ethereal and soaring melodies. Chilling.


It segues into "Man on Fire," where his more optimistic side is on display. Without question it's the most accessible piece on the album, and thus it was unsurprisingly the lead single. But this upbeat feeling dwindles from here onward.




In his 1951 book New Hopes for a Changing World, Bertrand Russell stated how "One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision." So many of us start becoming cynical by our 30s as certain realities of life expose themselves, and these themes of doubt, frustration, and pessimism permeate the album as Roger's disillusion has started to set in (a few years of Thatcherism didn't hurt, either). In more recent years it's pretty clear he eventually said "fuck it" and decided to have fun with his life. Who can blame him?


Even the cover tunes fit the concept. "Racing in the Street" and "Masters of War" are both excellent examples of making an existing song one's own. He'd achieve the same with "Working Class Hero" a lifetime later.


The interlude of "Killing Time" is a marvellous sonic experience. "Dreams go by just killing time." He's fixated on dreams again, but this time in a different context - being consciously aware of it instead of escaping it.


We're treading the same old wheel
Killing what they can't steal
Smile but we just don't feel


Who would've thought the guy who wrote "I'm In Love With My Car" could come up with something this... real?


"Tears of heartache, tears of rage from living in a tiring age" declares Roger in "Abandonfire." He's a rhyming couplet type of writer, and he's rarely been better than on that line. If you want to see inside this man's soul, it's all over this album.


But he remains briefly hopeful:


Listen to the rhythms of the city life
Listen to the rhythms of your soul
Listen to the rustling in the undergrowth
Follow in their footsteps to your goal


Almost like it represents the inner ping-pong match of persevering vs. giving up. Brilliant.


On the surface "Young Love" is an innocent and nostalgic piece, but amidst the overall narrative it comes across as wistful.


This is your life, this is your age


A typical call to arms, but it is short-lived:


You've seen it before
Like your mum and your dad
They're dying each day
Living a lie that's so sad


He's saying young love is precisely that - for the young. Reality soon sets in. It's messy. David Gilmour and Pete Townshend covered similar ground in "All Lovers Are Deranged" from About Face, also released in 1984. Give "Deep Deep Feeling" from McCartney III a gander too. These guys know what they're talking about.


Nobody sees this American dream just fading away, it's a complete waste of time, just a nursery rhyme


It seems obvious now, but in the '80s this idea was slowly emerging. Neil Peart nailed it on "Between The Wheels," and Roger Taylor nails it on "It's An Illusion" - although with much less subtlety, because Roger Taylor doesn't do subtle. His heart is on his sleeve, always.


Our reason is fading away


A 1979 US postage stamp sported the phrase "fueled by truth and reason." But by the '80s that veneer was starting to get peeled back.





It all comes together with the last track, "I Cry for You."


I hope you're fine, I hope all's well, give 'em hell
Given time hope springs eternal.


Once again, he doesn't sit in his happy place for long enough, as this isn't an album designed to bring comfort. It questions it, constantly.


Life has no fun anymore
Time is on the run for sure


Again, he oscillates between optimism and anything but.


Who finds conclusions with love, hope, and confusion?


A far cry from the man who wrote throwaways like "Let's Get Crazy" and "Fun It" a few years earlier, innit?


And who exactly is he crying for? Himself? The world?


Next time one of us meets him, ask him. He's touring solo next month for the first time in decades - now's your chance. He'll be flattered that you even know the songs - trust me. The greatest gift you can give an artist is your time, and to take the time to ask him about his feelings goes a country mile further than "I first heard your music in year X," "I lost my virginity to song Y," or "can you sign this for me?"


It's criminal that this music isn't more well-known. But alas this is what happens when you're second fiddle to the greatest frontman of all time. Your music doesn't get the distribution it deserves.


At the time he insisted Strange Frontier is far better than its predecessor, and as much as it can be reduced to PR to market his current project, he was right. It's a manifesto to its time and timeless all at once, because it's just as much about the universal human condition as it was about the state of the world in 1984.


Musically it's largely dated like so many albums of its time, but persevere with it and peel away the layers and you'll likely come to see that it's lyrically a masterpiece. A coming of age. He may not be Springsteen or Dylan, but here he gets remarkably close. 4 1/2 stars.



Friday 2 April 2021

review: Yes - "The Ladder"


Rick Wakeman once referred to his good friend Jon Anderson as "the only guy I know trying to save this planet while living on another one."





The progressive rock band Yes has always had a rotating cast of characters. Wakeman doesn't play on this album, but he's the first to say Yes has always had great musicians in it. Whether or not he was just being diplomatic, he was right.


By the late nineties Anderson's iconic countertenor was full-on into new age philosophy, and amidst this collection of tracks it is inexplicably infectious, making for the most uplifting Yes album since 90125 (and to date).


Roger Dean's artwork is once again sported on the front cover, although they had a new logo for this one.


The Ladder had four of the members from the lauded "classic" lineup—Anderson, guitarist Steve Howe, bassist Chris Squire, and drummer Alan White, augmented by multi-instrumentalist Billy Sherwood and keyboardist Igor Khoroshev (who was well appraised of the shoes he was filling).




Their creative peak was pretty well inarguably in the 1970s, and an unexpected second lease on life led to their commercial peak in the mid '80s. By the late '90s they were in a bit of a creative rut and joined forces with Canadian producer Bruce Fairbairn. Finding yourself aligned with the right set of ears at the right time to coach you through the process can make all the difference. By this time it was clear to anyone watching carefully enough that Canada had spawned more successful record producers per capita than any other nation on earth (Jack Richardson, Bob Ezrin, Daniel Lanois, Bob Rock, and David Foster for starters) so the odds were in Yes' favour that something great could happen.




This is the one latter day Yes album where their '70s compositional prowess blends with their '80s pop sensibility. The arrangements are thoughtful, the melody always comes first, and rarely are two choruses identical. And in an era where the idea of album sequencing was now mostly in the rearview mirror, it flows beautifully and cohesively from track to track. They even brought in a sideman, Randy Raine-Reusch, who played a whole score of ethnic instruments, bringing a welcome freshness to their sound which hadn't been fully realized for quite some time.


Yes is a vocally driven band, but usually not in the traditional sense. Anderson's vocal best functions as a fifth instrument and is not necessarily front and centre. His words are often merely an extension of the music, not the other way around. Even if you don't believe a single word he says on The Ladder, he offers it genuinely and gracefully, with authenticity and joy. You just can't help but want to be on whatever planet he's on.


And it's not just Anderson on the spiritual bent here—Fairbairn nicknamed Howe "Swami" for his role in the process. I'm often a cynic, increasingly hardened by the world, and this album makes me believe magic exists. When these two guys are fully congruent with one another they create magic every time.





Prog fans hailed the eponymous 10-minute opening track as a return to form, but just as much depth is found in the shorter tracks that follow.


"It Will Be A Good Day" sees many baroque-inspired key changes, similar to "And You And I." Anderson and Squire's voices blend together as well as ever, like Lennon and McCartney on "If I Fell."




The genre bending and upbeat "Lightning Strikes" is Yes' boldest move since they teamed up with the guys who wrote "Video Killed The Radio Star." The horn section is well-utilized, and the time signature changes galore never feel shoehorned or laboured, similar to what Rush achieved on "Limelight."


"Can I" is self parody at its finest, with the counterpoint and lyrics evoking "We Have Heaven" from Fragile. On first glance it's derivative, but Anderson takes it a step further, inventing a language long before Sigur Ros. I have such a soft spot for choral music—the same reason I love the title track off Drones by Muse.


On "Face To Face" Squire makes something as rudimentary as a descending major scale sound like you're hearing it for the first time. The Aretha-like backing vocals are not unlike "Houses Of The Holy" (the song, not the album).




Word painting is a musical technique that goes back to Handel, at least—"Ev'ry Valley" from the Messiah first comes to mind. At the end of Anderson's love song "If Only You Knew," on "when I was falling" the textural bit of steel guitar Howe adds literally sounds like something falling. Masterful.


"To Be Alive" is pop perfection. Once again the congruency of Anderson and Squire's voices are on full display in the second verse. Howe's only contribution is a bit of lap steel, and it's sublimeso exceptionally suited to the song that he plays it again like McCartney's solo on "Maybe I'm Amazed." Every note Howe plays on this album is purposeful, crafted with care. His parts are mostly ornamental, and this is not to their detriment. It is an hour-long clinic on how to play for the song, decorating only the spots that need it. This is what musical maturity sounds like.


Many of the songs have outros that are completely unrelated to the rest of it, as Fairbairn felt the ideas were too good to leave on the cutting room floor. And somehow it all works. The bit tagged onto the end of "Finally" has a Tales From Topographic Oceans feel to it. The intro unexpectedly recapitulating later in the song is marvellous as well.




The sudden entry of backing vocals in "The Messenger" is one of the most powerful moments in the entire Yes catalog. Even people who panned this album said they loved this track.


"New Language" is not dissimilar to "Close To The Edge" in that there's a lengthy instrumental intro that precedes the core of the song. The backing vocals in the pre-chorus evoke "Leave It" off 90125, and in the last chorus Squire's bass part moves up an octave. Tiny sprinkles like this are massively effective, as he manages to somehow elevate the track to an even higher place. It's classic Yes from here onward for the rest of the piece.




On "Nine Voices" Howe plays the same 12-string Portuguese guitar he'd played decades earlier on "I've Seen All Good People" and "Wonderous Stories." The "new language" lyrical theme is heard again, similar to "these days" showing up all over the album bearing that name by Bon Jovi (another underrated '90s album). It wouldn't surprise me if the overdubs totalled nine voices, because it wouldn't be Yes at their best if they didn't have that kind of attention to detail.


With this album a bunch of guys in their 50s shunned the idea of following timely trends, and in the post-grunge era they produced what should be hailed as a classic. It's an entirely different discussion why the business mechanisms that were needed to help achieve that didn't come to bat for them, but it's all moot now that you're reading this.


Give The Ladder a spin—you'll almost certainly be glad you did. It's one of the best rock albums this side of OK Computer.




Saturday 2 February 2019

Dr. Brian May: polymath




This post on the wonders of the New Horizons mission is a two parter, with the first half being expertly done by my good pal and professional astronomer Ryan Marciniak. My part focuses on the path one of my favourite musicians underwent to end up on NASA's rolodex.


For Ryan's insightful take on our latest bout of excellence in space travels, go here: https://rhea.ryanmarciniak.com/2019/01/new-horizons-and-ultima-thule-two-perspectives


The link between music and astronomy begins over 200 years ago with William Herschel.  Most famous for discovering Uranus and infrared radiation, he was also a composer. By the 20th century, Danish composer Hakon Borresen wrote a ballet about Tycho Brahe, and one of German composer Paul Hindemith's operas was based on Johannes Kepler. Polish composer Henrik Gorecki's second Symphony was entitled The Copernican. American composer Philip Glass wrote an album about Galileo, and later composed another opera on Kepler. Glass also wrote a piece about the constellation Orion.


One of the first rock bands to dive into astronomy was Rush, with the vividly detailed "Cygnus X-1" in 1977. About a decade later, Todd Rundgren wrote a beautiful and introspective piece called "Hawking." But the first rock musician to properly incorporate astronomy into music was Brian May of Queen. In 1975 he composed a piece for the band's A Night at the Opera album entitled "'39," which details an astronaut's journey as per the time dilation effect. The protagonist feels like he has traversed space for only a year, but to the people at home on Earth he has been gone for a hundred. May later revealed how it had another layer to it (unbeknownst even to him on a conscious level at first), about the contemplation of the changes that occur at home and within oneself when one leaves their roots in search of experiences and meaning in life.




Teide Observatory, Tenerife, 1971



May's career in astronomy actually began before Queen did, but he abandoned his Ph.D. studies in 1974 after the band found commercial success. He eventually finished his doctorate on the motions of interplanetary dust in 2007, a topic that had fallen out of fashion in the 1970s but gained a renewed interest as other habitable zone planets were being discovered.  An asteroid was named "52665 Brianmay" in his honour the following year.


He is also a lifelong enthusiast of stereo photography, an art of 3D photo viewing that traces back to the 1840s. The premise is that two photos of the same object or scene taken at slightly different angles can pop out in 3D, either by crossing one's eyes or viewing the images through a stereoscope.  Unbeknownst to millions of Queen fans for decades, May's [and bassist John Deacon's] love for stereoscopy graces the back cover of their debut album.




The toy drummer in the middle is a stereo pair.



May's affinity for stereoscopy never waned. All those years of touring often saw him rummaging through the shops of the world in search of stereo cards, and his collection is apparently one of the finest in the world. He has since written or co-written numerous books on stereo photography, astronomy, music, or any combination thereof.


In 2013, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield sent May photos from the International Space Station, which he turned into stereos that he presented at the Starmus conference in Tenerife a year later. The conference was the Woodstock of science, with the added bonus of being able to meet your heroes without a backstage pass. Nobel Laureates, men who walked on the moon, and household names like Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson mingled with the rest of us. 
Stephen Hawking was the headliner, and one of the opening acts was Brian May.



The collaboration between Hadfield and May seems to have begun with this brief Twitter bromance.



The audience of about 500 all received specially designed stereoscopic 3D glasses (designed by May and photo historian and stereoscopy expert Denis Pellerin) to view images of planets, moons, and asteroids in their full 3D glory from their seat in the conference room (not before May began with a 3D image of Freddie Mercury, to much joyful recognition from the crowd of delegates). He also explained how parallax is not only used to calculate our distance from faraway objects in the universe, but by our eyes on a daily basis, as they constantly do these same calculations so that we can see the world in 3D throughout our lives.


I was there, in the middle of the oohs and aahs.  At one point May stated how he would spend several days at the computer working on single images to maximize their 3D capabilities, to a standing ovation. In a seminar in which he had set the stage by explaining how the school system in his day taught him that it was impossible to be both a scientist and an artist, watching the scientific community embrace his unique blending of science and art a half century later, at a conference specifically designed to blend science with the arts, was nothing short of magical.







Aside from touring, Brian May's musical activities have mostly taken a back seat in recent years while he has pursued his other passions.  He was most recently a scientific and musical contributor to the New Horizons mission.  His first solo composition in nearly 20 years, entitled New Horizons, found one passion of his reigniting another.







He premiered the song at the NASA headquarters New Year's event immediately after counting down to 2019. His goal in writing it was not only to commemorate the mission, but also to celebrate our inherent inquisitive nature as a species.  Days later he posted on his blog his own stereo pair of the first clear images of Ultima Thule, the furthest object we have ever travelled to.





It is of little coincidence that memes like this pop up, as people are now connecting the dots between his musical and academic pursuits:





Brian May has created a second career in exercising his star power to bring science and academia to the masses in an accessible way. He is a Renaissance man. I'd argue he is the Leonardo da Vinci of our time.


Who wants to live forever? Probably no-one.


But I wish he could.