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On July 11th, 2014 I rode down to the Ottawa Bluesfest to catch what I could after spending the bulk of the evening teaching guitar at The Ottawa Folklore Centre. I can’t tell you if I spent any of my time at work teaching Guns N’ Roses tunes but I probably did. Even as the band’s popularity wanes and ebbs as the years go by Slash’s delicious guitar lines remain ubiquitous for power-chord hungry electric guitarists, and I suspect they always will. I tell you, after seeing Slash play live several times I would say he’s pretty much the best at what he does, and what he does is play a mean guitar.
But this would not be one of those times, as in a fit of assumed irony I missed Slash’s solo set at the Bluesfest because I was stuck at work likely teaching Slash’s lines to some kid. I did, however, see the entirety of the Barenaked Ladies.
Well, not exactly, as the entire Barenaked Ladies were no longer in the band since half of their lead singers got popped doing cocaine through a window in upstate New York*. But I did see the entire set by the almost entire (or at least “entirely new”) Barenaked Ladies.
I’m of two minds with where to go from here – up or down – because while I’ll freely admit BNL are a huge rock and roll step down from anything Slash is involved in (an inarguable fact buoyed by the inclusion of Les Paul guitars plugged into Marshall doublestacks), the band’s quirkiness, clever songwriting, borderline novelty and – yes – super-solid musicianship elevates them significantly. As a matter of fact, I’ll listen to BNL’s Gordon album before I’ll put on pretty much anything by Slash or GnR, and further, I could see myself buying a ticket for a standalone Barenaked Ladies show (if the price was right) waaaay before I would ever consider shelling out for a show by Slash.
But then there are the repercussions from that stupid cop looking through that damn window. With such a family-oriented image it’s hard to imagine BNL keeping Page on after such a transgression and they didn’t, to the band’s sonic peril. Geez, I thought the band lost a major piece of the puzzle when Andy Creeggan left after the recording of their followup to Gordon (Maybe You Should Drive) and he was just the keyboard player! For a band like the Barenaked Ladies to grab a guy like me so hard (and they did – I still think Gordon is one of the best albums in Canadian history) means they had a combination that was chock full of magic. And while the magic started to ebb when Creeggan left the band it pretty much disappeared altogether with Page’s ousting.
Without that magic all that was left was a good band and a pile of good songs and while their set on this evening didn’t burst my soul with glee it was certainly a passably good time. And though I generally appreciate their offhanded ad-libbed attempts at humour in between songs I wasn’t really in the mood for it after missing Slash’s set. But really, the biggest disappointment was the absence of Steven Page.
Bad cop. No donut.
*Which is not to say that Steven Page was doing cocaine through a window. Rather, he was seen doing cocaine by a cop who was looking through the window of a private residence. Now, I know the statute of limitations doesn’t have anything to do with a situation like this, but if you ask me it should. I mean, if a society deems it illegal to, say, pick your nose because they think it’s an abhorrent act then I should think that squirrelling away (mostly) out of sight in order to pick your nose should be a-okay, and any cop sniffing around should just keep their own nose out of it.
Todd Man Out 