Category: Arts

The joyful sound of Dwayne Gretzky

That’s Dwayne, with a D, and not Wayne, the former hockey great we’re no longer so fond of these days. On February 22, we went to see Dwayne Gretzky in concert at Centre in the Square.

It was not based on much in-depth knowledge about this band. I knew they did covers. I had heard a couple of these covers, probably on CBC Radio, and I’d thought they were good. They were supposed to perform with the KW Symphony as part of their (the symphony’s) ultimately doomed 2023–24 season. I’d been left a bit curious about them ever since.

The show was a party.

It was really well attended, and many of the attendees were pretty well lubricated. Jean and I were sober as judges, but were still infected with the mood. Stand or sit? was the question, as it often is at these “soft seat” venues. Sitting was initially winning out… But not for that long! Soon there was a lot of standing… And dancing… And singing along.

The show was a party.

The Dwayne Gretzky band is… large. I think I counted 16 people? Because they cover lots of instruments—horns and strings and stuff, along with the expected guitars, bass, drums, keyboards—and lots of vocal styles. And these vocal stylings are great, some fantastic voices on display. And great instrumentation as well.

This video gives a pretty decent overview of what the band is like

The covers were largely from my era—1980s, with a side of 1970s and 1990s. So, though I’d never seen this band in concert before, I still knew all the songs. This is the key to the fun, if you’re in the right demographic (as most of the audience appeared to be).

This was the playlist (thank you, Setlist.fm):

  1. Owner of a Lonely Heart (Yes cover)
  2. Dreams (The Cranberries cover)
  3. Don’t Stop Me Now (Queen cover)
  4. You Can Call Me Al (Paul Simon cover): The crowd was definitely starting to rise here
  5. We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome) (Tina Turner cover): Though we sat back down for this
  6. Rosanna (Toto cover)
  7. Baba O’Riley (The Who cover)
  8. Walking on Broken Glass (Annie Lennox cover): During intermission, had to Google who did this originally. Still recognized it, though.
  9. Maybe I’m Amazed (Paul McCartney cover)
  10. How Will I Know (Whitney Houston cover): They brought out yet another singer, a guest, to handle these Whitney / Abba / Celine tunes
  11. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) (ABBA cover)
  12. Drive (The Cars cover): A new one in their large repertoire, they said
  13. Dancing in the Dark (Bruce Springsteen cover): We were, we were dancing in the dark.

Intermission!

  1. 1999 (Prince cover)
  2. Let’s Go Crazy (Prince cover): At some point, they mentioned how much livelier this crowd was then their previous night’s (so suck it, Peterborough, I guess)
  3. 9 to 5 (Dolly Parton cover)
  4. Crazy (Patsy Cline cover): A vocal virtuosity
  5. I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor cover)
  6. Higher Love (Steve Winwood cover)
  7. It’s All Coming Back to Me Now (Céline Dion cover)
  8. I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) (The Proclaimers cover): So much dancing and clapping!
  9. Bang the Drum All Day (Todd Rundgren cover): A youngster joined for this on-stage, very cute
  10. Piece of My Heart (Janis Joplin cover): This singer, man! The rasp! Fantastic.
  11. Bobcaygeon (The Tragically Hip cover): Ah, my heart! So good.
  12. Radio Ga Ga ((Queen cover)): Yes, we did the arms.
  13. Under Pressure (Queen & David Bowie cover)

Encore!

  1. Come and Get Your Love (Redbone cover)
  2. With a Little Help From My Friends (Joe Cocker cover)

So basically, if you need a lift, if you want a high, quick as the speed of light, a Dwayne Gretzky concert might be the ticket. Especially if you’re GenX-y.

Were we heroes—just for one day?

My sister, a regular Guardian reader, was the first to alert me that there was to be a London (England)-based musical built around Live Aid, the big benefit concert for famine relief that took place on July 13, 1985. I wasn’t about to fly over there to see it, and I knew full well that not every play on a London stage finds it way to a North American one.

So while the Guardian article was interesting, it was downright exciting when Mirvish announced that they would bringing Just One for Day (the Live Aid musical) to a Toronto stage for its North American premiere, as part of its 2024–25 season. (Though, side note, at first I thought that it was playing just for one day, which made me think, my God! No way I’ll manage to get tickets for that single performance! Til I read the finer print and realized that it was a 10-week or so run. Phew.)

My sisters indicated that they would be interested in going also, with husbands in tow (some feeling more enthusiasm than others). Then it was a matter of waiting through the season subscription-only time til we could buy tickets. Then waiting for show day itself: February 8, 2025. This was about a week after opening night, which was quite the star-studded affair:

I had no idea how they were going to build a story around this one-day concert.

The setup was as follows: a mother is seeing her activist daughter off to university, and wonders if she’d like to take a copy of her Live Aid Concert Book. Daughter wonders how this ancient history could be of any use to her today. Mother tries to explain its impact at the time. She is assisted by Bob Geldof, cofounder of Live Aid, who says that to understand it, you have to go back to the beginning.

Jump to… The Boomtown Rats (Bob’s band). Then an influential BBC TV report about a terrible famine in Ethiopia. Then the idea of a charity single. Then an American charity single. And a visit to Ethiopia, during which it becomes clear… it’s not enough. There’s a meeting with Harvey Goldsmith. Then a countdown clock to organizing a worldwide benefit concert in an incredibly short amount of time.

We see the events from Bob’s perspective (and Midge Ure’s, and John Kennedy’s—the Band Aid Charity Trust lawyer, not the US President), but also from the mother’s, who is trying to sell as many singles as she can, and hoping to get concert tickets. All while crushing on a record store coworker. And also from the daughter’s, who is there to interrogate (for example, the problematic lyrics of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, and the specter of “white saviorism”). And from an aid worker in Ethopia. Also, from Margaret Thatcher…

And all the way through, the music of that time is woven through in amazing, reimagined ways, presented by an incredible, diverse young group of performers with fantastic voices. So though almost all songs included in the musical are ones that were performed at the concert, for the bulk of the musical, they’re used in a different context. The Cars “Drive” while watching the Ethiopian news reports. “Radio Gaga” while trying to get “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” on radio playlists. “My Generation” to address what this all might mean today. And so on.

They do, in the last quarter or so, touch on the famous moments of concert day, like Status Quo opening, Geldof taking in the day during an “I Don’t Like Mondays” pause, the “give us your fucking money” line that wasn’t, Madonna getting into the groove, Queen giving one of the best live performances of all time, and McCartney’s mic cutting out during the “Let It Be” finale.

Bob Geldof, arm raised at Live Aid.

Live Aid’s my thing, man. So I’m not exactly unbiased. But I did think it was one of the best musicals I’ve ever seen. In fact, our whole group gave it a big thumb’s up—even the skeptical brother-in-law!

CTV report on opening night

It was good at reminding you now, just as we sometimes needed then, that apocalyptically horrible things were happening amidst all the pop music fun. And yet, a lot of scenes were quite funny as well! The actor playing Bob Geldof, Craige Els, was pitch perfect. George Ure, as Midge Ure, was also very good—and apparently not Midge’s son. The staging of sometimes using actual photos from the time was effective in its lack of overuse. The music… I’ve already mentioned the quality, but it doesn’t hurt that I also knew all the songs!

And through the mother / daughter character, the story is brought through to today. Bob (and Midge Ure and others) got the talent together, but it wouldn’t have worked if individual young people hadn’t bought the songs and tickets and talked their friends into doing the same. Big charity music benefit concerts won’t cut it now. But the idea of a big mass of people agreeing that they can no longer support a great humanitarian injustice, that they feel driven to come together to do something about it… Well, we all have to hope that’s still relevant!

Ten percent of ticket sales for Just for One Day: The Live Aid Musical go to support The Band Aid Charitable Trust.

Candelight concert

Gotta hand it to Instagram: They have quite the good, personalized advertising engine. I find most of the products they push on me somewhat interesting. I have gone on to buy from far more than any other social media site, I’m sure.

And generally I’ve liked the products just fine!

I can’t always ferret out how they go from the posts I look at on Instagram to they advertisements they sneak in between, but one recent link was pretty clear: Brian May / Rufus Taylor / Adam Lambert > Fever Presents Candlelight Concerts: The Music of Queen. At Maxwell’s, in Waterloo.

But what are Candlelight Concerts?

That took a bit of off-Instagram research. Basically, it’s a string quartet! (At least, this show was.) As for the candlelight, well, they do decorate the venue with a bunch of electric candles. And they perform music by popular artists such as Taylor Swift, Abba, and Queen—interspersed with a few classical pieces. And they do some outright classical concerts.

It all sounded interesting enough. Jean and I decided to go.

We hadn’t been to Maxwell’s since seeing Lowest of the Low there many moons ago. This time there were seats! Along with very strict rules about getting there on time, not getting up during the performance, and not using your phone to take pictures or video until the last song. And an expected show time of 1 hour.

But despite all that structure, it was a pretty relaxed fun, evening. They did introduce each song, and I really enjoyed the way they arranged them for the four stringed instruments. The interspersed classical pieces were things like excerpts from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. I won’t remember all the Queen songs included, but there was Don’t Stop Me, Fat Bottomed Girls, Somebody to Love, Bohemian Rhapsody (natch), and this one:

Another One Bites the Dust (I recorded just the sound of the last song, since I find my videos never turn out that well. Sound isn’t terrible!)

Mercer and Arden, kids and the symphony, and more odd ducks

The only problem with having events scheduled for sequential Saturdays was that it was getting in the way of movie night. By the third week, we solved our dilemma by watching a movie on Friday night.

Radical, huh?

Anyone but You was quite entertaining. Very funny in parts. As long as you’re good with the whole romantic comedy genre, I say go for it.

But, on to the events.

The will they or won’t they tour: Jann Arden & Rick Mercer

Chronologically, this was first up. Not only for our series of outings, but also for Jann Arden and Rick Mercer, who began their tour of the country in Kitchener. Jann Arden is a singer/songwriter (and also actor and novelist). Rick Mercer is a satirist, comedian, and author.

The Will or Won't They Tour poster: Jann Arden & Rick Mercer.

How the two met was something Rick explained during their live “Night of laughs and intimate conversation”. He was in Calgary filming a bit for his show, Rick Mercer Report. Only the bit was a flop—wasn’t going to air. They had to quickly come up with something else. One suggestion he got was to have Jann Arden give him a tour of Calgary. And he was like, “Jann Arden? Great singer, but I think she’s a depressive!”

Continue reading “Mercer and Arden, kids and the symphony, and more odd ducks” →

Getting out of the house

“I’d almost forgotten what that was like”, Jean commented, as we exited the Registry Theatre after a Larry Larson’s Jazz Guys concert. And by that, he met a live musical performance of any kind.

We’d intended to attend many a live musical performance over these past and coming months, but then the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony suddenly and apparently irrevocably went bankrupt—a mere week before what would have been their first concert of the season. Our season’s tickets for various performances, from Bolero to Magic! to Back to the Future to Shostakovitch, suddenly longer worth nothing more than a tax receipt.

There are efforts underway to try to revive the local arts scene, but who knows. Government funding is tight all around. The Globe and Mail has been covering the problems that theatre companies have been experiencing right across the country (🎁 article link). Mirvish is doing fine, but others are not. I suppose the lack of audience return is due to combination of people having become increasingly accustomed to home entertainment; inflation lowering budgetary for spending on discretionary events; and some remaining concern about the health risks of crowded spaces.

But for us, at least this year, it was just mainly that the Symphony disappeared. And we’ve had trouble finding appealing alternatives. It’s been some time since we’ve been out anywhere.

February has seemed virtually packed with arts activities, comparatively speaking.

Continue reading “Getting out of the house” →

Agit-Pop!

It was just a small listing in the What’s Happening Waterloo newsletter:

Agit-Pop! Musical Meditations on the Pre-Post-Apocalypse

Intriguing.

Reading further:

Superstar drag comedienne Pearle Harbour performs her doomsday cabaret. Laughs & tears through the headlines, and hits from David Bowie, to Britney Spears. A hilarious and heartbreaking cabaret for the end times.
Agit-Pop! reimagines the hits of Bowie, Britney, Judy Garland, Tom Waits and more as you’ve never heard them before.

A portion of proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to The Healing of the Seven Generations.

The Registry Theatre

Sounded right up my alley, really. Drag. Doom. Pop.

Pearle Harbour performing in Agit-Pop.

Jean, ever the trooper, agreed to come along.

As we approached the door, I noticed that all the theatre staff were masked, which was refreshing. Then the man a bit ahead of us in line turned around to go back out, stating “I’ll just go get the mask in my car!” Huh. Then I noticed the “Please wear a mask for this performance” sign. Double huh! Hadn’t seen one of those in many a moon!

Policy was not strictly enforced, so some people remained unmasked. But, I’d say a good 90% to 95% went along with it. Peer pressure, eh. Can also be a force for good!

But. On with the show.

Though it’s not the easiest to describe, as I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Admittedly, I don’t go to a ton of drag shows regardless, but have seen a few, and I don’t think this was a typical one of those.

Pearle Harbour, accompanied by a single musician who can play multiple instruments, discusses the various challenges and problems facing our world. The need for Indigenous reconciliation. The climate crisis. The ongoing Covid epidemic. Anti-immigration sentiments.

And interspersed it with pop music, not as a distraction, but as a commentary.

5 years. That’s all we’ve got.

My loneliness is killing me.

There’s a land I dream of… Somewhere, over the rainbow

I think I just wasn’t made for these times…

But it was still drag. So it was not all po-faced. There was bawdiness, there were jokes, there was a whole lot of audience engagement and participation. A tragicomedienne, she is called, and that sounds about right.

Given all the interaction, Jean enjoyed the evening as much as I did. We did the wave—the Covid wave! We discussed the etymology of agit prop. We shared guilty pleasures. We stood en masse to do the duck and cover. To a background of Cold War era cartoons (some of which are quite something).

Bit late to tell you this now, but she also play Waterford and Fergus. Then she’s moving on to other provinces (and bigger cities—Montreal, Calgary).

Hey look! I found a YouTube!

Poignant and oddly healing

Now Magazine

Sounds about right to me.

What a Jagged Little Pill

I decided to go see Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill: The musical because I am a big fan of Jagged Little Pill, the album, and indeed of much of her other oeuvre. But I didn’t know anything about the musical itself, or what kind of story they’d woven around the songs.

Jean agreed to go also because, well, because he’s a sport I guess, given that he hadn’t super enjoyed the last two musicals we’ve seen, the acclaimed Hamilton and the also acclaimed Rent. Couldn’t quite follow the former (lots of plot, admittedly), and couldn’t quite get the latter.

And what I wouldn’t give to find a soul mate?
Someone else to catch this drift
And what I wouldn’t give to meet a kindred?

All I Really Want, Alanis Morissette

Fortunately, Alanis, Diablo Cody (who wrote the book), and Glen Ballard (who co-wrote many of the songs), were kindred with Jean. He really enjoyed this musical. As did I. Because it was awesome!

The songs are used to tell the story of a year in the life of a family of four: the tightly wound Mary Jane, her workaholic husband Steve, their academically inclined son Nick, and their activist adopted daughter Frankie. Big, heavy topics are addressed: Sexual assault. Opioid addiction. Racism. Sexism. Some moments are super uncomfortable. But there’s a lot of humour in between. And all those great songs!

The playbill includes everything from Jagged Little Pill along with some selections from other albums, like “So Unsexy”, “Uninvited”, and “Thank U”. Lyrics are occasionally modified to suit the character and the situation. They really supported the story; none seemed to be just trotted out because they were big hits that needed including! “You Oughta Know” is not necessarily sung by whom you’d expect, to whom you’d expect, but it builds to an undeniable thrilling climax nonetheless. The audience responded ecstatically, as they should have.

But I had to laugh that after the line:

Why are you so petrified of silence? Here, can you handle this?

The audience totally could not handle the following silence, and had to fill it in with random clapping.

Anyway. This thing was really well cast, with the actors playing Mary Jane, Frankie, and Jo (a friend of Frankie’s) particularly standing out. Amazing singing voices, and just outstanding performances.

5 stars. No notes.

Getting there and back

This was in Toronto, so we had to make our way there. For Jean, this trip turned out to be the day after he got back from a later-scheduled work trip, so that wasn’t ideal, but he coped! We took Flixbus again. They’re finally using proper branded Flixbuses on the Kitchener-Toronto route (previously it was a generic bus), which even had wifi, albeit somewhat flaky.

For some reason we couldn’t seem to leave from our usual Waterloo stop, and had to get on at the Kitchener stop. Not a big deal—just meant staying on the Ion (our local light rail) for four stops instead of one. Still seemed odd, though, because on the way back, we did get off at the Waterloo stop.

Waterloo Park with fall foliage
Waterloo Park, which is near our usual Flixbus stop

The bus was weirdly overheated for the first portion of the trip back. I was starting to wonder if I could actually handle the entire 1 hour, 45 minute trip (not that it was clear what the alternative was) when the heat finally stopped pouring out.

We managed the Toronto subway pretty well also (we have Presto cards now!), though Google kept confusing us with mentions of line outages. Took us a while to realize that said outages were occurring much further up the line than we intended to go.

Other stuff we did

It was a quick trip: we left Saturday morning and returned Sunday morning. Of course, that was long enough that we needed a hotel room. We went with the Courtyard Marriott, which was a “mere” $300 or so for the night. Was nice that the room was available despite our arriving pretty early, around 11:00 AM, and even nicer that they gave us a little bag of snacks and bottles of water. Totally worth the $300! (I joke. But it actually was nice.)

We grabbed lunch from a Freshii, which, oddly, we’ve never eaten at before. It was good. We each had a smoothie and a wrap. Quite fascinating how much stuff they can fit into those wraps.

Since we have memberships, we spent a bit of time at the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario). Their special exhibit was featured the artist Kaws, who does stuff like this:

Big red and gray bears
Pile of stuffed toys.

Which was kind of interesting. For one part, you had to download an app on your phone, then point it (the phone) at a particular spot in the gallery to see the art, as a 3D image. We took a picture after doing that, but are not clear on where that pic ended up…

And overall, we probably enjoyed the Cornelius Krieghoff room (part of the permanent collection) the most during this visit.

Our post-musical dinner was at Avelo, where we’ve been twice before. Since our last visit, though, they’ve changed things up. The beautiful room upstairs, where we sat both times previously, has been converted into a bar. Meals are now served downstairs, in a smaller, darker, noisier room. Since we had both envisioned the previous visits, we were a bit miffed.

To be fair, I think they had emailed me about these changes—it just hadn’t really registered. (I thought their new Bar Avelo was at some other location than our Avelo.) With generous table spacing and visible HEPA filters, the previous seating area felt as safe as a maskless, indoor dining experience could possibly be. And while the new downstairs room did still have a couple HEPA filters, and not all the tables in the small room were filled, it still didn’t feel as comfortable.

On the plus side, the food was still amazing from start to finish, the service was very good (though we still missed our upstairs guy), and the wine pairings were spot-on. It has lost what made special, though—other Toronto places also have good food, service, and wine.

(Not that Avelo needs me. From where I was sitting, I could overhear that the new bar was super-popular: so full that they had to turn people away.)

Swallow it down (what a jagged little pill)
It feels so good (swimming in your stomach)
Wait until the dust settles

You Learn, Alanis Morissette

Stuff I learned from podcasts this week

Actually, by now it’s stuff I learned last week, or the week before that… But I still find it worth knowing!

You’re going to bullshit yourself regardless, so you might as well put it to good use!

Hidden Brain: Outsmarting Yourself

Person weighing a decision.

This was the second of a two-part series on cognitive dissonance: how you try to convince yourself that a decision you made was the right one, even in light of evidence to the contrary. Pretty much all humans do this, so even if you’re well aware of that tendency, you might still do it. But the awareness can at least help you harness it for good.

Some really interesting examples here of how to harness cognitive dissonance for good, including in the realm of public health. Hmm…

The federal government is killing local news by trying to help local news

The Paul Wells podcast: How Bill C-18 is threatening a local news empire

Jeff Elgie of Village Media.

Thanks to Michael Geist, I’ve been aware of Bill C-18, the law that (essentially) says that Facebook and Google must pay news organizations for linking to their content, for years. And that it has resulted in Facebook (Meta now, I guess) doing exactly what they clearly said they would do if this bill passed, which is to stop linking to news. With Google now likely to do similarly.

What I learned from this Paul Wells podcast is how this has specifically hurt an organization that I had never heard of before. Village Media has been very successful at going into markets that have lost their traditional local news outlets. Village Media has filled that void, supplying communities with local news, all online. They have staff journalists, with benefits—not just a bunch of freelancers! They are profitable, and growing, and had been planning to expand into several new markets this year.

Until, until…

Continue reading “Stuff I learned from podcasts this week” →

Working vacation

I used to think it was sad to use vacation days to do home renovations. But, to be fair, back then I had fewer vacation days to take, and a stronger desire to travel.

Anyway, it’s not like we didn’t have any fun on our big two days off. Wednesday night I had book club, aka “hanging out with friends”. Thursday Jean had canoe trip with his friends. And that night we reunited and went to Stratford to see Rent.

(I really liked it. Jean quite enjoyed the dancing, but found it difficult to follow the plot with so much of it sung.)

Saturday night we drove to Guelph and met some friends for dinner. We ate at Buon Gusto. They have a lovely streetside patio, and it was just a perfect day for al fresco dining: Warm but not too hot or humid; just a light breeze; blue skies all around.

Jean with burrata toscana.
Jean with burrata toscana

The food was also excellent. Service was a bit slow at first, but we weren’t in any particular rush. It gave us more time to talk with these friends that we hadn’t seen for about a year! Great catching up with them.

Crispy pork belly.
Crispy pork belly

But the big project between those events was taking down our previous cat enclosure (built around one of those carport things) and replacing with a custom-built one.

We’d started working on this project earlier in the summer and had a lot of the framing completed. But at some point it had to be “out with the old, in with the new”, and we wanted to minimize how much time the cats were stuck indoors as a result. So this time off seemed suited to getting that part done.

This new “catio” was sort of my idea, and I bought a plan to get us started, but then Jean adapted it and fully took the lead on it, as I am quite hopeless at this stuff. But I was out there with him the whole time and helped with whatever I could.

The doors were fiddly, but that was kind of expected. That we hadn’t bought enough fencing to fully make it around all parts the enclosure was not expected. That seemed an issue, especially given that it takes two weeks to get more.

But, here we were saved by the principle of reuse: As the bottom layer, in most places, we used the fencing we had deployed on the old catio. That gave us enough of the new stuff to cover the rest of it.

When nearly done, we took Mac out to test it.

Cat in enclosure.

After walking it around for a bit, he quickly demonstrated that he could climb right up the fencing to the top of the structure. (We will be adding a roof, but that was always planned for a slightly later weekend.)

Fortunately, we still had some pieces of new fencing left, and so were able to create an “overhang” all around it that, so far, seems to be keeping Mac in.

Roofless catio
A not-so-great picture that hopefully still gives an idea of what this “catio” looks like—you can’t really see the overhang, but it’s there.
A side view of roofless catio
Another not-so-great photo that focuses on the fiddly door and see the tree on the far side? We’ve incorporated that inside the catio as well.

Addendum: After a week, this morning I looked out to find Mac up on the top ledge of the “catio” once again. He walked along the top, seeming unsure what to do (it is pretty high), and finally jumped back down inside. I think he climbed up at a spot where the “overhang” is not as wide.

I have a bit of an idea for how to create a better barrier there, quite temporarily. I’ll discuss with Jean whether it’s at all feasible.

And we’ll at least start on the roof this weekend. Hoping to not have to take another working vacation!

Amanda Marshall: Heavy Lifting

Jean and I went to see Amanda Marshall’s most excellent concert at Centre in the Square on Wednesday, June 21. I wrote about it on my companion site (not too long a post!): Amanda Marshall: Heavy Lifting tour.