
I’d intended to catch the Saturday night Weakerthans show with a couple of friends but it turned out that I had friends going to both the Friday night and Saturday night shows. So, in the spirit of living as though I may not see tomorrow, I decided to hit both shows! I’ve always wanted to see the Weakerthans and I figured I ought to see them twice while I have the opportunity.
Friday’s show started with Oh Susanna, a folk artist from Toronto. She’s another act I’ve been interested in seeing for a long time now and I don’t get out to many folk fests so I’m lucky she got billed with “the rock boys” as she put it.
The Contantines came on next and rocked. Great band. I was reminded of the Wintersleep show I saw a while ago. I’d seen them last year at the Sub Pop festival but wasn’t impressed, probably because I was all excited about seeing Green River or Flight of the Conchords. I think I was more into them this time because they were in a club setting and I wasn’t wishing the clock would skip ahead to Green River’s show time.
When the Weakerthans came on they jumped in with a couple of songs off Reconstruction Site which is one of my all time favorite albums. The show alternated between slower stuff off other albums and faster songs off Reconstruction Site. Great show, but I didn’t realize they would outdo themselves the next night.
Last night I showed up for night 2 of the Rolling Tundra Revue. I’d picked Miranda up from the airport and made it to the Commodore just in time to see the Constantines again. I got right up to the front so I could get a good view of the band where I discovered that they have an amazing drummer! The dude was awesome. It’s going to take heaps of practice for me to get to his level. Maybe it was where I was standing, but I thought the Constantines were way more kick ass than they were the night before. Maybe they’re just one of those bands that took a couple of shows to grow on me. I know I’ll be listening to lots more of their music in the next few weeks.
The Weakerthans came on with a bang and rarely let up for the rest of their show. Way more energetic than Friday’s show and by the time they went off it felt like they’d only played for a few minutes! I think they’d played more of their mellow stuff on Friday and saved some of the faster songs for a Saturday night blowout. It’s great to see a band a couple of nights in a row because you get to see the differences in their sets. I also find I get more engaged in the songs they play on both nights.