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Uptown Magazine - Winnipeg's Online Source for Arts, Entertainment & News

January 21, 2010


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2010-01-21

TEGAN AND SARA

Jan. 14, Burton Cummings Theatre w/ An Horse

I'll be honest: I'm fairly new to Tegan and Sara. I didn't fall in love with them until 2007's The Con - and it was their sixth and most recent album, Sainthood, that really sealed the deal for me.

Last Thursday night's gig at The Burt was the first time I had seen them live - and let me just say I was a gushing, salivating fangirl by the end of it. Those voices! That banter!

And I wasn't alone. The diminutive twins treated the packed house to a tight (read: 28 songs in two hours) crowd-pleaser of a show.

Setting the tone with a trio of austere electropop tunes off Sainthood - Arrow, Don't Rush and The Ocean - Tegan and Sara kept up an impossibly energetic pace, rocking out a raucous version of superhit Walking With a Ghost before settling back into new material (which sounded absolutely unbelievable live, by the way.)

In fact, the gals played every track off Sainthood and, in my opinion, they were the gems of the main set. From the slinky, blue-eyed soul-inflected Alligator to the breathless pop-punk anthem Northshore, the Sainthood songs burst with emotion and intensity (you can tell the Quins enjoy playing the new record live).

The hands-down highlight of the show, however, was the career-spanning encore. Tegan and Sara played stripped-down acoustic versions of Back in Your Head (off The Con), Feel It In My Bones (their collaboration with Tiësto) and My Number (off 2000's This Business of Art) before leading an audience singalong for a goosebump-inducing rendition of The Con's bittersweet closer, Call it Off. (I think I actually shivered, their voices were so pure and beautiful).

Call it Off would have made for a powerful, resonant finale, but the Quins chose to end the night on a dizzying high with a spitfire, sugar-rush take on Living Room (off 2002's If It Was You) - and to say the audience went apeshit is an understatement.

(Put simply, if you missed this show, you missed out big.)

Openers An Horse - an Australian boy/girl duo with a fondness for distortion pedals and plaid shirts - warmed up the crowd with its grungy, and totally catchy, garage pop. Definitely worth checking out.
— Jen Zoratti

BLUE RODEO

Jan. 17, MTS Centre w/ Cuff the Duke

Firstly, I have a confession to make.

I don't consider myself a huge Blue Rodeo fan. Sure, I've been exposed to the band's hits over the years and even watched it perform at the Grey Cup half-time show on television last year. Even after minimal listening time to this able combo, anyone with half a brain would realize that they have their roots-rocking hearts and hands in exactly the right places and get their music across with skill and finesse.

Then I got Blue Rodeo's latest album The Things We Left Behind and was pretty much floored by its honest, classic country rock vibe and attendance to being downright homey and devoid of pretense. As they say, "it's a good 'un."

A mild Sunday night saw the MTS concert bowl gradually fill up with punters ready to rave, stomp and sing along to Jim Cuddy, Greg Keelor and crew as they tour Canada behind the aforementioned album and, while the band had its share of distracting technical difficulties, it rose above those issues like the professionals they obviously are and made a purely outstanding night of it.

The band opened with Never Look Back and One More Night both culled from The Things We Left Behind and, as was expected, the mostly middle-age and older crowd applauded its heroes politely but it was apparent as the evening progressed that (as usual) Winnipeggers came for the hits and wanted to hear them, pronto.

Cuddy and Keelor still manage to bring chills with their blissfully wedded harmonies and, by adding Cuff The Duke singer Wayne Petti in on the fun, there was no shortage of spine-tingling moments. The band leaned into the set with ease and the addition of violin and cello brought some emotional substance to the newer songs.

The band doled out the necessary hits throughout the set and there were some pretty special moments courtesy of back pages slam-dunks such as Rose-Colored Glasses, 5 Days in May, Lost Together and the always-gorgeous Diamond Mine. The encore set included Til I Am Myself Again, Try and Lost Together.

The show was skillfully paced, mixing slow burning ballads with the more upbeat rockers. In particular, Keelor should be congratulated for minding his golden voice all these years. He still leans back and belts out those gripping songs like practically none other. In the end, whether you were a neophyte fan or an old-school acolyte, Blue Rodeo proved why they could easily lay claim to being one of this country's top-rated, super-professional bands.

Warm-up quintet Cuff The Duke provided a superb set of songs taken mostly from its new album and was a good musical fit with its sweet harmonies and Gretsch, Rickenbacker and Guild guitar-fired hipster country sound.
— Jeff Monk

GUNS N' ROSES

Jan. 13, MTS Centre, w/ Sebastian Bach, Danko Jones

By now, just about every rock fan in the world knows about Bad Axl.
He's the moody Guns N' Roses frontman who starts shows late, jumps into crowds, storms offstage, rants at his bandmates and takes 14 years to make an album.
So it was not without trepidation that 7,500 diehard Guns N' Roses fans wondered which Axl Rose would show up when the 2010 version of GNR took the stage at MTS Centre to play the first North American date on its long, long awaited Chinese Democracy.
For the most part, we got Good Axl.
Rose and his seven-piece backing outfit started their show at 10:45 p.m. on this night, and they went on to deliver a 170-minute set that wasn't lacking for hits, pyrotechnics or thundering guitars.
Indeed, the current band - guitarists DJ Ashba, Richard Fortus and Ron (Bumblefoot) Thal, along with keyboardists Chris Pitman and Dizzy Reed, bassist Tommy Stinson and drummer Frank Ferrer - roared through 22 songs in their onstage time. They also ran tirelessly all over their two-tiered, double-winged stage and offered up seven different solo spotlights (one for each guitarist, one for Reed, one for Axl at the keys before November Rain and one for Ferrer; Stinson, the former teenage Replacement, got to do a snot-nosed version of The Who's My Generation as part of the encore).
Reflecting on the whole package, there was a lot on offer at this gig, but it still seemed as though something was missing - and I'm not talking about the presence of Steven (or Matt), Duff, Izzy (or Gilby) and Slash.
Yes, Axl is in fine vocal form, as he proved on screamers such as Welcome to the Jungle and Out Ta Get Me.
Yes, though he may look a little thicker than he did 23 years ago, he is also certainly in good physical shape, as he proved throughout the night, running, twirling, gesticulating and doing that swivel-hipped slither that he does. He looks better, too, having shed the corn rows for a mid-length shag of sandy blond hair.
There's nothing wrong with the band, either. Bumblefoot, Fortus and Ashba are all fine hard rock players, and doubling the rhythm guitar lines on most of these tunes just made them seem bigger. Ferrer and Stinson were consistently locked in while Pitman and Reed gave all GNR's most recent material - from the Use Your Illusion albums and from Chinese Democracy- the melodic colour and electronic crunch they required.
No, what seemed to be missing here was the element of sheer excitement that once accompanied Guns N' Roses wherever the band went.
Sure, the eight Appetite for Destruction tunes the band played were thoroughly and deservedly well-received by the gathered faithful. But only impressionable kids or diehard fans give a shit about Chinese Democracy songs.
Most fans at MTS used the time the band spent playing new material to text, shout into each other's ears or head back to the beer line (the one-beer per person per visit limit wasn't much-appreciated, either). Couple those lulls in momentum with long, repetitive solos and eight or nine costume changes from the singer, who seemed to be offstage as much as he was on it, and we ended up with one hell of a disjointed show.
Things certainly started promisingly, as an Appetite-heavy, four-song opening salvo - which included Jungle, Mr. Brownstone and It's So Easy - drew truly deserved applause. The show ended well, too - just after 1:30 a.m. - with a stunning version of Paradise City.
It was the looong, looong time in between that often tried my patience. Even if we did get Good Axl.
— John Kendle

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