Alcohol & Irony Pt 1

As you know, I came to Vancouver to see a band...

The first Weakerthans show was an all ages affair at a place called Mesa Luna, which is out of downtown. It's a two story bar with a deck that provides an incredible view of the mountains. I also liked looking in the other direction at suburbia - with it's wooden houses and lush folliage.

I had time to spare before the show so I had a pint too many at the bar/restaurant across the road. I talked with a fireman called Daryl for a while. He told me about the mafia and the unions in Canada. 'Fireman' sounds amazingly like 'farmer' when said with a Canadian accent.

At the show I met a few nice people - Jay, his girlfriend Donnabella (no kidding) and their mate Mike. Donnabella was hit by a car that day and was unsuprisingly a little out of it. They won tickets to the show from the radio (so that balances out the car crash right?) and weren't familiar with a lot of the Weakerthans music, so I explained to them exactly how good the band is.

I promised myself I wouldn't talk to singer/genius, John K Samson, because I'm a bit too old for sycophancy. So when he walked past I jumped up and exclaimed, "John? I flew from Australia to see you. You've been my favourite band since 1997. It's my birthday on Saturday, can you play 'Aside' for me". He went, "Pete, Aside. Pete, Aside. Okay" and walked off. Oh well.

The support band was the Constantines, who have been described as "Bruce Springsteen meets Fugazi", which means they write songs about ordinary folk with harshish unconventionalish music. But I imagined that if the Boss really met Fugazi it would go something like this:

The Boss - "You guys want to have a few beers"
Fugazi - "No thanks, we don't really drink"

Anyway, they put on a great show with lots of posing, playing in the crowd and so forth. The keyboardist looks just like Wil Anderson and, coincidentally, he's called Will. Thankfully, despite the physical resemblance to a blandly comic Aussie, he's talented (I made a mental note at the second show to send an email to the band with a photo of Anderson attached - I then decided that was a lame idea and thought the better of it).

The Weakerthans came on and they were pretty good. I was a bit pissy by this point and it was all a bit surreal and all over way too quickly. They played about a third of their material and I was kinding hoping they'd play all of it but what are you going to do?

For the encore the Constantines joined the band to play the Travelling Wilburys' End of the Line, which was remarkably good [JKS explained at the second show that there were two rules for the tour. 1. If you (anyone in the crowd) have mushrooms you must share them with the bands; 2. No making fun of End of the Line].

Jay, Donnabella and Mike were all converted by the experience (at least I think they were).

I then headed back to the Firetrap, a little dazed by the whole thing and looking forward to seeing the next show a little more soberly. Upon return, I stopped two old guys from fighting at the bar only to turn around to see a room full of disappointed drunkards who would rather have seen a little blood. Oh well again.