Slow One
December 6, 2006Well, the Globe gave it a good review but the folks I was with and the band, they’s own selfs, thought it was kinda mediocre. Personally, I can’t complain; I enjoyed m’self.
I’ve loved Sloan for a long time… I can still remember my friend Frank telling me, way back when, that Jay Ferguson
—who worked at Frank’s record store in Halifax—was in some new band called Sloan. I thought, “Oh, how cool is that?!” Jay’s such a doll. A real sweetheart of a guy. He useta work extra hours at the store so that Frank could take extra time off to hang out with me whenever I came for a visit. In all the years since then, I have never managed to catch a live performance by Jay’s li’l band. ‘Til last week.
Last Thursday evening, Frank and Mike and I made our way through the wind and rain that had soaked Tronna to the skin all day down to Kool Haus, on Lakeshore. It’d been a looong time since I’d seen a club show: X, at Club Xscape in Salt Lake back in November of ‘02. I hate going to shows alone, y’see… And back then, down there, I didn’t know anybody who’d wanna go to that show. So I sucked it up and went by myself because X is my favourite band. And it was the original lineup–mit Billy Zoom–so I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity, despite my discomfort in going alone. A coupla months ago I bought tickets to see The New Pornographers (coincidentally, also at Kool Haus), but Frank hadda back outta going with me ‘cause he discovered he was already going to another show that night. Couldn’t find anybody else to go and there was no way was I gonna drive all the way to Tronna to go to a show by myself, so I ate those tickets. Needed a serious dose of Pepto Dismal for that indigestion, I’ll tellya… So do you think a deluge that would’ve furrowed Noah’s brow a few sprinkles could stop me from seeing Sloan? Nah.
Back in the day (the day being when I worked at Records on Wheels), I useta go to club shows all the time. If Wheels sold tickets for a show, we usually could get into it for free. Went to so many shows and drank so many beers that my memory of what bands I saw is hazy, dreamy, and I am unsure about a lot of it. While we were standing around half-listening to the opening band–The Yoko Casionos–on Thursday night, Frank and I were telling Mike tales of the (g)olden days… One memory that stuck with me (and Frank confirmed) was an example of truly appalling behaviour on my part. It was a Smithereens show at the old Diamond club. As usual for those days, I was several sheets to the wind by the time the band took the stage. And there was this person standing in front of me on the floor in front of the stage (Frank called it a “him”, but I remember it as a “her”–take yer pick, it doesn’t really matter). S/he was wearing a big puffy white down jacket. For some reason, this person was irritating me. Not sure if it was just because his/her bulk was blocking my view of the band (Frank’s theory) or if s/he was dancing around in my personal space (my theory). I smoked back then. Pack a day. Out drinking, it’d be a whole pack in just an evening. Benson & Hedges 100s. (Tangentially speaking, I started smoking in uni–wanted to vicariously taste a professor I had a crush on… and he smoked Benson & Hedges 100s. Took *this* long for me to get hooked on ‘em.)(BTW, if these things were any indication, he tasted terrible. Alas, by the time I discovered that fact, so did I.) So there I was at the Smithereens show–drunkenly pissed off at the Michelin (Wo?)Man in front of me, and armed with a pack of long cigarettes. I cringe, now, at the thought of his/her unpleasant surprise when s/he got home and discovered all the holes I’d so carefully burned into the back of that white jacket… And now you see why I’m not too upset by the fact that I don’t remember a lot about those days: I’d just as soon not remember assholery of that magnitude. And you also begin to see why I don’t drink anymore. *smiles demurely*
So sucking back the $4 club sodas at Kool Haus left me with a clear memory of the night. They played a lotta songs off their new release, Never Hear the End of It, and I can’t complain about that because it is a strong record. It is filled with really well written songs with sweet & hooky melodies.
I’d been mighty disappointed with Action Pact, so my joy over NHTEOI is large, and I was quite happy to hear them cover so much of it in their show. Some folks mighta been annoyed by that focus on the new album, but not me. While I must admit I was sorta hoping to hear “Underwhelmed” (which they didn’t play), I can at least content myself with having had the opportunity to reaquaint myself with the girl they wrote it for when we went backstage after the show…
All during the opening act and then throughout much of Sloan’s performance, Frank was casting his gaze around the room–looking for members of what he called The Halifax Mafia. I guess it’s not unusual for lotsa ex-Haligonians to go to any show that Sloan does in Toronto. Finally, he spied the tour manager and scrambled after him. They came back to Mike and I and tied wristbands on us so that we could get backstage after the show.
Man, it’s been years since I went backstage after a show, and 99% of my memories of having done it are (surprise, surprise) suspended in a murk of beer and smoke. So it was nice to be able to not make an ass of myself this time. Of all of the people back there, I had only ever met Jay and the girl who co-inspired the aforementioned song. That meant I knew at least two more people than Mike did, but he is an outgoing charmer and it didn’t take him long to get comfortable. Natch, Frank knew pretty much everybody back there. The verdict amongst the band members was that it was just an okay show. I’d noticed that Jay and Andrew sometimes wobbled a little off-tune but that is part of their charm, eh? Frank pointed out that the crowd wasn’t the typical raucous Sloan audience (which is an opinion expressed by others at Sloan’s website) and mebbe that affected the performance. Or mebbe it was the other way around. Ye olde chicken-and-the-egg argument. Hard for me to say, really, since I don’t have any previous Sloan show/Sloan crowd with which to compare it. So I had a great time!
And Jay’s still a doll. Still a real sweetheart of a guy. 
