Watching this autumn’s quality playoff baseball provided a moment of clarity for me yesterday: the Blue Jays are not remotely playing at this level. They have Guerrero, and maybe Bowden Francis as of late – that’s about it. Their bullpen is almost non-existent (they blew about 25 late-inning leads this year), and their bats are inconsistent at best. The lineup is now mostly triple-A players, almost completely unrecognizable from two years ago.
I love the game of baseball, but what’s happening in Toronto isn’t baseball – it’s a business. Ever since Alex Anthopoulos was forced out of the organization at the end of the 2015 season, the Toronto Blue Jays have morphed into a corporate entity under Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins. It is painfully obvious that these American businessmen in the front office have zero desire to create a winning team in Toronto, because the current status quo is profitable enough. There’s little to distinguish them from the Maple Leafs now in this respect.
The moment when it all clicked for me? Of all people, Manny Machado took on the leadership role in the Padres’ dugout last night to keep his team’s heads in the game as Dodger fans were throwing things onto the field. It was truly a beautiful moment of camaraderie. But it also carried an element of symbolism, that even a notoriously dirty player like him is redeemable if there is upper management that is willing to produce a winning team. And it was accompanied by a sinking feeling that it was the kind of scene a major Toronto sports franchise may never witness again. If the current office mentality continues unabated, 2016 will be the last time the Blue Jays ever make a serious run for the AL pennant.
(Photo by K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune/SCNG)
The biggest highlight of the Blue Jays’ 2024 season was the renovations on their ballpark, the costs of which are largely being downloaded onto season ticket holders. The price tag for some seats has risen to over $100Know, which is absolutely bananas. Decent seats have become unaffordable for most, and the tabs will mostly be picked up by corporations. Just like the Leafs and Raptors, most loyal fans will be either in the 500 level or stuck at home watching the games on TV where they will soon see a lot of empty seats on that screen, because worker bees who are offered free tickets by their bosses by and large do not want to go see a perpetually losing team. The “ride or die” types have been priced out.
Let’s not forget that in 2022, it was upper management that pulled Ryan Gausman during the second wild card game, not manager John Schneider, which is what led to the spectacular collapse of the Jays’ season in a span of three innings. The same thing happened a year later with Jose Berrios, after which play-by-play man Dan Shulman openly stated that pitchers walked into Schneider’s office saying how they knew it wasn’t his decision.
Can we go so far to declare that Shatkins' mandate seems to be ensuring Canada never produces a winning baseball team again? All the signs seem to point in that direction.
One thing's clear – in the last decade, Toronto has become little more than a soulless playground for the rich, and the current state of the Blue Jays is a perfect example to illustrate this.
"I always felt that the privilege came with the responsibility to keep this daily half-hour a safe place for family fun. No social issues. No politics. Nothing embarrassing, I hope. Just a game."
Pat Sajak gave a speech at the end of his final episode of Wheel of Fortune, which aired last night.
It sounds classy and even benevolent on the surface, but let's unpack this.
He's boasting about something being a "safe place" where talk about social issues doesn't exist.
I didn't even need to look up his political affiliation, because it's abundantly clear which players from which team would typically go out of their way to state that social issues don't matter even for one minute of the day. Obviously he's a Republican.
And not a nonchalant innocent bystander with whom we can respectfully disagree and call it a day, as his cute speech would suggest. It is no secret that he spends his riches on funding conservative speaking events on American college campuses, serves on the board of a publishing house for books by Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, and is a regular writer for far right outlets where he is an outspoken climate denier and has stated in no uncertain terms that public employees should not be allowed to vote on issues that directly affect their lives.
Guess which demographic tends to see the least effects from social issues in the country? Wealthy straight white males like him. And guess who else shares his demographics? The majority of Republicans in Congress, who repeatedly vote against any legislation that will curb the effects of those very social issues (198 of 267 GOP members of Congress are straight white males, a less than subtly disproportionate representation compared to them comprising about a quarter of the overall population). So to therefore use his platform in front of millions of people, virtually all of whom will never even be able to conceive of his wealth and privilege, to effectively tell the country that he doesn't care about the fact that they'll never have his wealth or privilege while he actively does all he can to ensure that as many people as possible will never be able to attain his wealth or privilege, takes a special kind of chutzpah.
Bigger picture: these social issues he's minimizing are literally the reason why game shows need to exist in the first place. People wouldn't be fighting for spots to win a direly needed $10K if they didn't live in a country that ranks near the bottom in the developed world for social mobility. Earlier in that final episode he even joked about the need to pay for surgery, in a country where one in three viewers of his show has medical debt. That's a hundred million people - one of whom will never be him or anyone in his bloodline.
Wheel of Fortune commands top prime time advertising revenue, and has long been a magnet for political candidates and super PACs. Needless to say, much of that prize money does not come from the most wholesome and honourable of places. For Sajak to claim that his show is not a place for politics is disingenuous at best. That place is right in his pocket.
"Safe place" has become a term for those who ARE affected by social issues, and the fact that he appropriated that term to make himself look virtuous for ignoring the very social issues he has actively helped perpetuate is beyond reprehensible.
In short: inequality is precisely what employed Pat Sajak for 43 years and made him a 1%er. He's worth about $65 million and has less people skills than a Walmart greeter. He is an embodiment of the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. And his game show that attracts huge sums of money from political advertising is designed to make him look like a nice guy for appearing to give a little bit of it back.
Reality check: it's not just a game.
Thanks for the memories, Pat. But that parting gift of yours left more than a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. You'd have been much better off saying nothing. What you've actually done is gotten people like me to spend 30 seconds on Google and find out how much of an incorrigible two-faced charlatan you are.
Here he is pictured with anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Smiling next to someone who openly hates J_WS isn't a great look. Can I buy a vowel?
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.
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.
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 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 finishas 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 sports—particularly 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 error—it'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.
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.
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.
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