the words that you knew but they still made you choke

I don’t know how many shows I saw in 2010; somewhere between 25 and 30. I was trying to keep track, but I didn’t do a very good job, and so I keep thinking of other shows I went to and then mostly forgot about. While I would sort of like to go to more, I actually think 25-30 is the right number for me, given my Plans and my schedule and my hatred of the human race. (Of course, given the fact that I already have 12 on my calendar for next year and that only gets me through February, there is a good chance that number’s going to be a lot higher next year.)

At any rate, there are so many things that make a show awesome. There’s the music itself, obviously; if I have loved someone’s music for a long time, or if I loved it at a certain formative and influential point in my life, I’m probably going to enjoy their concert. I’m probably going to enjoy it if they have some other singer (Slash, with some studio dude subbing in for Axl), or if the singer’s old and his vocal range is shot (Gordon Lightfoot), or if everything about the show is entirely ridiculous (Billy Idol), or if it’s music I would no longer think to put on my iPod (Bon Jovi).

I’m a little harder on current favorite bands than I am on old favorite bands (even if my current favorites have been current favorites since I was five). While it’s difficult for a band like the Hip or Social D to lose me at a show, it can be done. Maybe the sound is bad, or security is overzealous, or the crowd is so full of assholes I can’t ignore them, or the band is having an off night, or I’m just not in the mood for that show in that moment. Hard to say, but in those cases, it’s about more than just the music and my memory.

I’ve had some great times at shows where I didn’t know the music very well, where I didn’t know it at all, where I had never heard of the artist. I’m not sure what makes those shows good — a combination of the music itself, the stage presence/antics of the band, their chemistry, the crowd, the venue, how many beers I’ve had, who I’m with (although I will say that I attend 95 percent of concerts by myself, so who I’m with rarely has an impact; and I rarely drink anymore at shows I attend by myself. That tends to end poorly.).

In that category last year was Elliott Brood, some band I’d never heard of who billed themselves as “Canadian death-country.” I went on a whim, because I clicked on the last.fm event recommendations, and they were playing that night, and I was jonesing for some live music. I wasn’t sure about it, though — maybe I won’t like it in a bar, maybe I won’t like it if I don’t know the band, I have to work in the morning and maybe it won’t be worth it, maybe maybe maybe. But it was great, and I fell in love all over again. I remember texting Sam, “fuck, I love live music. How did I live without this for so long?” After that, I stopped trying, and I’m glad I did. In many ways, that show brings you this post; I may not have kept going to shows if that one had sucked. (I spent ten years or so not going to concerts. I will not ever do that again.)

ANYWAY. With that ridiculous and too-long intro, here’s the list of the best concerts I saw this year, and why they were the best. I’m pretty sure they were best for entirely different reasons (really awesome, really emotional, really weird, really loud, I got in some fights).

1. Social Distortion. 20 Oct 2010, The Riviera, Chicago. With Frank Turner and Lucero.

This one was the best one, as far as I’m concerned. I was iffy on Lucero, but Frank Turner is one of my new favorite people, fun and kickass and interesting to watch. As for Social D, well. Of course I love the music and pretty much always have, and that can’t be discounted. But as far as I can tell, a Social D show is about sheer driving rock and roll and the overwhelming stage presence of Mike Ness, who spits and sweats and sneers and snarls and strains and sings like he wants to kill someone. Probably you, motherfucker in the third row. He never stops moving. The sound was good, the setlist was solid, the band was tight, the crowd was pleased and pleasant and I never even felt like punching anyone, Mike Ness spit on me, ‘Ball and Chain’ kicked my ass, and I smiled for a week.

2. Elliott Brood. 16 Feb 2010, Ontario House, Vancouver. No opener.

Since the first time I saw them last year, I’ve seen Elliott Brood four or five times; I’ll go to one of their shows every chance I get, even though I don’t really listen to their studio stuff that much. It’s good, but the live show is roughly 4,859 times more energetic, and because I saw them live long before I listened to any of their albums, I have a hard time with the records. But like I said, if that first show had been shitty, I probably wouldn’t have kept going to shows. I wouldn’t have remembered how much I loved them.

So there’s a definite emotional thing going on here, with me and Elliott Brood. They’re a band, by the way, not a dude. They’re a raucous Canadian alt-country three-piece, and frontman Mark Sasso sometimes says things like, “You guys are used to dueling banjos down here in the States, but we’re Canadian, so we’ve got some cooperating ukuleles for you.” And then they rock the fuck out of those cooperating ukuleles. There are not a lot of things that make me more content than being drunk in a room full of equally drunk Canadians at an Elliott Brood show, and I somehow manage to get that chance every few months.

So anyway, this particular show, the one I liked most, was during the Olympics, which is basically one giant party with enough free music to overwhelm even the most rabid of music geeks. The shows were pretty hit-or-miss, and I think a lot of that was due to the nature of the event; a lot of people were there because they were there and it was free, and not necessarily because they wanted to see the band. But Elliott Brood is one of those groups that can completely draw in an unfamiliar crowd, leaving everyone with a smile on their face and wanting more. I don’t know how many people were crammed into the Ontario Pavilion that night, but from where I stood, every single one of them was having a fantastic time.

Also, they closed with ‘Ring of Fire,’ and I was on one hell of a Johnny Cash kick at the time, and basically, everything about this show was perfect. (The Social D show also closed with ‘Ring of Fire.’ Hmmm.) I was at the Olympics, I was with Sam, and the beer was flowing and the music was good, and I’m not sure what more I could have possibly asked for.

[I want to throw in an honorable mention here for the Constantines, who played Ontario House as well. There was a women's curling match on that night, an early round, Canada vs Sweden, and Ontario House (like all Olympic venues) had TV screens showing the games. Curling went to extra ends, so they were still throwing when the concert was supposed to start. They turned the televisions off, and everyone in the place started shouting for them to turn the match back on. They did, and the Constantines came out and sat on the stage and watched curling with the rest of us. As the Canadian skip threw the last rock of the match, this ludicrously perfect shot that slid to a halt right on the button, the drums kicked in and a cheer went up and the lights went down and it was one in a series of Vancouver 2010 moments so perfect I wouldn't be able to make it up if I tried. I particularly enjoy it because it's not as if we could hear the announcers; for the drums to have kicked in at that moment, Doug MacGregor had to have an understanding of curling and had to have been paying close attention. He was -- they all were -- and I love them for that.]

3. Gord Downie and the Country of Miracles. 5 Nov 2010, Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Toronto. No opener.

Honestly, I wanted this one to be the best one, and it was quite excellent. I haven’t talked about it much because I don’t know how to talk about Gord’s solo stuff (he’s better known as the lead singer of The Tragically Hip). In my iTunes, his genre is “weird shit.” Sometimes it’s spoken-word poetry and theremins; sometimes it’s crunching guitar noise and Gord’s throaty howl; sometimes there’s an inexplicable tuba; sometimes it’s straight-up rock and roll. This tour was in support of his third solo album, The Grand Bounce, and it may be weird shit, but I love it anyway, and if you can say anything about Gord Downie, it’s that he puts on a hell of a show. The QET is a pretty new venue, 1200 comfy seats in a long narrow room, and it came off intimate, surreal, and pretty low-key.

Gord provided the backdrops to the songs himself using an old overhead projector, food coloring, oil, little pieces of plastic, and a casserole dish. It was weird, and eerie, and cool, and sometimes unsettling. This was the last show on the tour, and so he was pretty fast and knew what he was doing, but there were still occasionally these long silences while he worked on his art project. People would sometimes shout things during these silences, and he ignored them for a while, until he couldn’t anymore and said something like, “Some people have a problem with silence. They feel the need to fill it with anything.” And it was clear from his tone that the next thought was, no matter how idiotic, but he didn’t say it. Instead, he said, “I’m not one of those people,” and everyone laughed even though it was a pretty barbed comment (like pretty much everything else he says).

It was basically the crowd that knocked this show out of the top spot. There was an intermission between sets, and Gord came out and played a few songs by himself. The rest of the band came back out for ‘Vancouver Divorce,’ and halfway through the song, the entire crowd finally came to its feet in this crashing wave of applause; it was one of my favorite moments of 2010, period. But it felt so late in the show to me, and there were these drunken women who kept shouting “FORTY IS THE NEW TWENTY” and embarrassing everyone (including Gord, as far as I could tell). So, I don’t know, I was never quite transported the way I wanted to be; something kept me grounded, and I do not like to be grounded at concerts.

Here, this is a good indication of how this show went. It’s moody and atmospheric and weird and intimate and sort of fucked up:

It was absolutely worth flying to Toronto for this show, but it could have been the best one, and it wasn’t.

4. The Sadies. 20 Aug 2010, Schuba’s Tavern, Chicago. With Prichard, and Jon Langford & Sally Timms.

The Sadies put out one of my favorite albums of 2010, Darker Circles, and so I was really excited to see them at Schuba’s, which is a pretty small bar venue that I like a lot. Initially the schedule said they were playing a two-night stand, but the second show disappeared, and I feel like they played two shows on Friday instead.

Anyway, first was Prichard, and I thought they were decent, stripped-down post-punk that was mostly loud, but they weren’t all that memorable. After a short break, the Sadies came on with Jon Langford & Sally Timms, and they ripped through a full set of material from their 2003 collaboration, Mayor of the Moon, which is a great fucking album. (As is pretty much any album where the Sadies decide to back someone else, like John Doe on Country Club, or Neko Case on The Tigers Have Spoken.) I think Langford is Welsh, and so the Tom Jones covers he kept throwing in there made some sense, plus they were awesome, PLUS they inspired singalongs from a crowd who wasn’t there to see them. (I love singalongs, okay, I’m a giant sucker for a five or 500 or 50,000 people all singing together.) Langford tells hilarious stories, and his rough-hewn voice and political poetry works really well in front of the Sadies. This would have been a fantastic show even if it had been over when Langford and Timms left the stage, but there was still one more set to go.

The Sadies played again, another full set by themselves, full of old favorites and stuff from the new record, and Dallas got drunker and kept turning everything up, and by the end it was so loud that I was in honest-to-god physical pain; my ears rang for a full week after this show. I’m not exaggerating. (I don’t usually leave the house without earplugs, but my sister was in town and it was a weird day. When I forget earplugs at other shows, my ears ring overnight, or maybe 24 hours if it is particularly loud. A FULL WEEK.) It was loud, is what I am saying, but it was clear and moody and gorgeous and kick-ass, and it went on forever but not long enough. I walked home at 3 in the morning, through the pouring rain, cold and wet and deaf and pleased as fucking punch, and if there had been a show the next night, I would have been there in a heartbeat even though I got like two hours of sleep all weekend.

5. The Hold Steady. 1 Oct 2010, The Vic, Chicago. With Wintersleep.

Let’s be clear: I came to this show for Wintersleep, and only for Wintersleep. I know who the Hold Steady are, but they’re not one of my bands. I try, every once in a while, to get into them; I’ll grab their new albums as they come out, but I never like them all that much and so I delete them from my iTunes and then I’m like, “who?” Wintersleep, on the other hand. I love Wintersleep. I think I saw six Wintersleep shows in 2010. I will happily stand in line in the cold for hours to watch them play for 45 minutes, as I did for this show. They have this gloriously huge but intimate, trance-inducing sound, complex and compelling. Also, Loel has the best drummer face ever and sometimes Tim plays the keyboard with his face and Mike plays the everloving fuck out of his Rickenbacker (I always stand in front of Mike) and Paul’s voice is distinctive and beautiful and a little bit strange.

So anyway, on this night, I went to the Vic to see Wintersleep. I got there very early because I like to be on the rail; there were maybe half a dozen people in line in front of me, so the rail was no problem. I was absolutely the only person in that line who wasn’t there for the Hold Steady, and pretty much everyone there was a phenomenally insufferable douchebag. They were getting in honest-to-god fights about who loved the Hold Steady more, and who “deserved” to be on the rail (HINT: THE PERSON WHO FUCKING GOT THERE FIRST), and it was pretty bad. But eventually Wintersleep came out, and played the best set I have seen them do all year, and I’m certain they made some new fans, which is what I want for them.

I had been planning to leave after Wintersleep, but everyone pissed me off so much that I decided I wasn’t moving ever, and so I didn’t. I was one of very few women on the rail, and I was definitely the smallest. And so, after Wintersleep left, some guy shoved his way up through the pit and decided to try moving me. The people around me called him names and told him to go fuck himself, but he was doing that passive-aggressive thing people do in concert pits, where they refuse to look anyone in the eye and project an aura of “oh, gee, how did I get here? I don’t understand how that happened!” while they elbow you in the face. He put one hand on my shoulder and one on my waist and tried to physically move me out of the way so he could have my spot, and I looked at him for a second and said, “Really?” He shrugged, and so I turned and elbowed him in the stomach as hard as I could, and then kicked him back into the crowd when he doubled over. He called me names, and I laughed, and the crowd closed in, and the Hold Steady came on and rocked the fuck out. I am not ever going to like their studio albums, but they put on a live show so good I’d absolutely pay to see them again, and I got in two fights, and Wintersleep was awesome, and that was a glorious night of rock and roll.

I hope to have many more nights like these in the year to come.