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The 7 - Music - SLCR #156: The Arrogant Worms (March 5, 2011) Register and log in to post!
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KJames199
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#1 Posted on 1.4.11 1645.31
Reposted on: 1.4.18 1646.10
Let's get one thing out of the way. I am a big stickler for accuracy (except in cases where being accurate would take fact-checking or any other form of effort), but I'm just going to have to get rid of that exclamation point right now. "Hey Rosetta" it is, because "Hey Rosetta!" will make Word stick little green squigglies under a bunch of my sentences and that would just about drive me nuts. I don't know if that's going to change how you read this - maybe it will be less exciting as a result - but that's a risk I'm going to have to take.

I just thought of something - if it's supposed to be "Hey Rosetta!", why isn't it "Hey, Rosetta!"? Actually, "Hey, Rosetta!?" would be the best one of all - the interrobang conveys a nice sense of befuddlement. And I know that having two separate symbols means it's not a proper interrobang, but I haven't had the chance to use that word in a while and I'm not about to pass it up now.

I actually started the review before going to the show - work has been a bit nutty for a few weeks and I expect this week will be much the same, so I wanted to get as much of a head start as I could. Though I generally have nothing more than good intentions, this time I'm actually listening to Hey Rosetta's new album, Seeds, before the show. No less an authority than CBC's Jian Ghomeshi (multiple-time SLCR subject and occasional SLCR correspondent) has already declared Seeds to be the album of the year - a strong statement seeing as how it was made before the first day of March. After the first go-through, I'm not prepared to be quite that bold, but it is really good.

Now, the problem with starting a review before the show is that sometimes you don't actually wind up going to the show. Or you go, but you're tired from a week and a half of working late and you really would rather just sell the tickets and go home, but they still have a few tickets at the door so nobody wants to buy yours, so you resolve to stick around for the opening act just so the money wasn't a complete waste. And that's the story of how I did NOT manage to see Hey Rosetta last week. The lesson: never do your work in advance.

Really, I think the lesson might be "don't buy concert tickets in advance for shows on work nights, since you're just going to cancel out anyway, or wish that you could." You'd think I'd have learned my lesson with the Jason Collett show I skipped out on, or the Our Lady Peace show that left me pulling an all-nighter at work. Give me a few months and I'll surely write this paragraph over again.

Having said that, I can use those opening paragraphs to pad my word count. And I'll even describe that night's opening act, Gramercy Riffs, in the interest of concert review completeness:

They were a band.

Does that sound mean? It wasn't meant to. I liked them just fine. Guitars and drums and keyboards and bass and vocals. Perfectly designed for Rock Band, which is really how I experience most of my music these days, it seems. It's just that - and I'm really playing fast and loose with the chronology in this thing - it's now been over four weeks since the Hey Rosetta show that wasn't and three weeks since the Arrogant Worms show that was, and I don't remember a whole lot and I really need to get this thing over with before 54-40 tomorrow night. This might have set a new record for concert review lateness.

When I'm reviewing a show by a band that I've liked for a long time, I usually make some comment about how I don't know how I'd feel about the band if I discovered them for the first time today. "Weird Al" Yankovic is a great example. I was probably 9 or 10 when I heard my first Weird Al song, and that's really the perfect age to do so. Accordions and Hawaiian shirts will never be funnier than when you're a 10-year-old boy.

But what would I think of Weird Al today if I'd never listened to him until now? Well, this show is about as close as I could come to finding out. For whatever reason, I pretty much missed out on the whole Arrogant Worms thing. I'm not sure how. I like songs, and I like funny, and I especially like funny songs. I knew their song The Last Saskatchewan Pirate because I have, in fact, been to a wedding dance in Saskatchewan before, and your marriage isn't legal until that song has been played. As an internet minister not legally allowed to perform weddings in Saskatchewan, I am very familiar with these rules.

But aside from Last Saskatchewan Pirate - and for that matter, the version of Pirate that I had most often heard was actually performed by Captain Tractor - I remained unfamiliar with the Arrogant Worms for a long time. I guess the best explanation I can offer is that from an early age, I fell into the Radio Free Vestibule camp in the great family-friendly, CBC-approved comedic Canadian song wars. The Arrogant Worms lost out by default. Mika played me a few songs, but the band has been around for 20 years, so I was largely going in blind.

I parked a bit further away than I would have liked, but we survived. The show started right on time, as casino shows tend to do. We had chairs. They brought us drinks. It was nicely comfortable. I expect I can copy and paste this sentence into the 54-40 review tomorrow. I'd do it now, but I've learned my lesson about starting these things early.

The show was divided into two 45-minute sets. That's relatively common with casino shows, but it seemed like it didn't do much but pad out the evening, which was still over pretty quickly. There was no opening act either. The first set was fine enough. Nothing special. I'd tell you what songs were played, but really, like I can remember? The second half had the songs that I'd actually heard before, including Carrot Juice Is Murder, and Jesus' Brother Bob. Last Saskatchewan Pirate was the encore, which it would pretty much have to be here.

The songs and jokes are exactly as you'd expect based on their titles. Even if you've never heard them, you already know if you like them or not. I know that some of you were rolling your eyes just reading them. Me, I thought all of their songs were fine. Wait, I used "fine" to describe that other band earlier. How about, hmm... "pleasant." There were some chuckles but no belly laughs, no wiping away of tears. A good time but not a life-changing experience.

The best part of the show was the series of running jokes about the empty table right by the stage - someone bought tickets and missed the entire first set. They walked in partway through the second set to what was probably the loudest applause of the evening. I hope they enjoyed the five songs they were there for.

UPCOMING SHOWS:
- 54-40 (April 3)
- Regina Folk Festival feat. kd lang, Hawksley Workman, KT Tunstall, Andrew Bird, Taj Mahal, Fred Penner, and more (August 5-7)
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hansen9j
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#2 Posted on 1.4.11 2107.06
Reposted on: 1.4.18 2107.35
    Originally posted by KJames199
    I knew their song The Last Saskatchewan Pirate because I have, in fact, been to a wedding dance in Saskatchewan before, and your marriage isn't legal until that song has been played. As an internet minister not legally allowed to perform weddings in Saskatchewan, I am very familiar with these rules.
True story: At my wedding, they didn't play Last Saskatchewan Pirate. Which is ridiculous. So at the end of the dance, we all just started singing it. Like, 30 people. We danced while singing, too. Finally, about one-half or two-thirds through, the DJ stopped dismantling his set-up and started playing the song (he actually synced up well with us).
StingArmy
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#3 Posted on 2.4.11 1948.47
Reposted on: 2.4.18 1950.42
Prior to reading this thread I'd never heard that this was a popular/traditional wedding song. Can anybody point me to a video of a Saskatchewan wedding?

I found and fell in love with that song ("Last Saskatchewan Pirate") circa 2004. At the time I was working at a summer camp in North Carolina. I decided that for the weekly dances I needed to break out something the kids never heard before so I played that song. Then I played it again the next week. And the next week.

Fast forward now to 2011 and I think it has been played at every dance (6 dances per summer) since that fateful summer, despite the fact that I haven't worked there in years. We even came up with our own little Rockette-ish leg kicking dance that we'd do for the entirety of the song (we'd even double the pace during the chorus). Let me tell you, that gets really tiring after 5 minutes. But 200+ people singing and dancing to that song in unison is pretty fun.

- StingArmy
hansen9j
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#4 Posted on 3.4.11 1416.26
Reposted on: 3.4.18 1416.37
    Originally posted by StingArmy
    Prior to reading this thread I'd never heard that this was a popular/traditional wedding song. Can anybody point me to a video of a Saskatchewan wedding?
Oh shit: I just realized someone filmed it at my wedding. I'm getting the video emailed to me, and I'll upload it to Youtube so you can all check out my mad air-flute skills.
hansen9j
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#5 Posted on 20.4.11 2208.55
Reposted on: 20.4.18 2209.07


Lower quality than intended, since I ended up ripping it from my Facebook page. I'm the handsome devil to the left of the bride at the start. And as promised: air-flute.
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