6 Gigs in a Week *

Venue:

Toronto/Ottawa

Date: 13/09/2024

* 5 real gigs actually

1. Squeeze/The (English) Beat – Massey Hall, Toronto

The Beat or “The English Beat starring Dave Wakeling” were on first. An extremely short set punctuated by a near strike half way through Save It for Later as Dave was unhappy about a bright light shining in his eyes (“turn the f*ckin light off”). Not sure why nobody could have helped him with this, but it remained on throughout. A guy in front of me was ejected for boorish behaviour and there were too many covers played in a 7 song 35 minute set. A disappointment overall

In contrast, Squeeze were superb, playing everything you might want to hear (except Labelled with Love) brilliantly. I see them regular as clockwork every 15 years and this was easily the best show of the 3 I have seen.

2. Road Diary – Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto

Not a gig, but the world premiere of “Road Diary” at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival). I secured a reasonably priced seat on the 4th row just hours before. A documentary about Bruce Springsteen and the E St Band mainly about the current tour but also containing some superb archive footage. At times it was like a gig with some singing along and applause at the end of songs. The fact Bruce was there watching it from the balcony (“Broooooce” as he came in) added to the occasion, I loved the film and the Q & A afterwards with Steve Van Zandt asking the questions to director Thom Zinmy, manager/producer Jon Landau and Bruce himself. A big reveal in the film was that wife and E St band member Patti Scialfa has been dealing with cancer for 6 years. Bruce is also a producer, but it did contain some fairly mild criticism of him. It will be streaming on Disney+ from next month.

3. Jeff Lynne’e ELO – Scotiabank Place, Toronto

First (and last) time I ever saw (will see) them. 76 year old Jeff was helped on and off stage and at times seemed rather frail and a little lost, sometimes forgetting to sing, and not playing any lead guitar. Given this, it was still a wonderful night, A real spectacular show with a setlist to die for. Slightly sad though, even if the band in general more than made up for any Lynne related deficiencies.

4. Greta Van Fleet – City Folk Ottawa

Led Zeppelin copyists thrilled a youngish crowd, but not really my kind of thing. Support Charlie Edward was one of the worst acts I have ever seen live.

5. Cat Power Sings Dylan ‘ 66 – City Folk Ottawa

My highlight of what I saw at the festival, on a packed smaller stage in a tent, Cat Power and her band (pictured) recreated Dylan’s legendary 1966 tour. Her idiosyncratic way of singing annoyed me at first, but I grew into it, and it struck me that that was fairly faithful of the man himself who rarely sings the same thing the same way twice. Her band did an excellent job of reproducing The Band (or Hawks) and it was a wonderful, albeit sweltering, evening. The night’s headliners on the main stage Rise Against were pretty awful in my book and I left fairly early on.

6. Alejandro Escovedo – City Folk Ottawa

Headliners for the last night Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit cancelled because of illness. Escovedo was a new one for me, in a 3 piece band playing a pleasing one hour set that
covered a number of bases. Vocally, perhaps not the strongest, but he played some mean guitar and a number of the songs seemed pretty strong to me. Replacement headliner Maren Morris has a good voice and it was nice enough in a countryish sort of way, again I didn’t make it through the full set. My main reason for going this night having initially been Jason Isbell.

The audience:

Varied, some probably pushing 80 and using walkers at the ELO show

It made me think..

Jeff Lynne should have sued Paul Weller for The Changing Man

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