Posted by On June 9th, 2007 I drove to Montreal to see Ween. Though I’ve only seen them a handful of times, Ween is hands-down my favourite live band and here they were playing my favourite Montréal venue, Metropolis.
Unfortunately we were late for the show. M’lady and I arrived in time to park the car and have a quick dinner somewhere, or so we thought. Dinner took longer than expected; every minute we waited for our food was a hungry eternity, and even after tearing though our food getting the bill seemed to take another forever. I figured (correctly) that the show had started and every minute on that patio was torturous.
When we did get to Metropolis of course the bar was packed. We found a spot on the left side about halfway back and parked there for the night. It was Ween so of course it was a great show. These guys tend to rock it like there’s no tomorrow. They write the greatest pastiche rock and roll going and consistently deliver it with impeccable skill and earnest determination. Whether they are channelling Jimmy Buffett through their brilliant singalong Bananas and Blow or one-upping Spinal Tap’s Stonehenge with their truly anthemic Buckingham Green (both played at this show) these guys always hit the nail on the head, and they hit it hard.
Clearly I’m a fan, so it’s funny to recall how the evening ended.
Around this era in my life I had a strange habit: whenever I would meet an artist after a show that I enjoyed I would make a point of including something negative about their show among my gushing accolades.
I don’t recall exactly when I started this habit – or when I stopped for that matter – but I do know why I started doing it. For some reason I’ve always had an extreme aversion to hearing people say nice things about a set I had just played. I guess I was (remain?) an insecure musician and usually I thought these people were lying to me, or just being nice. So I made it a habit to end any show I played by immediately and very slowly wrapping cables and packing up gear in hopes that other band members would absorb all the well-wishers. I guess I still do that.
Due to my own difficulty receiving compliments after a show I figured if I said something critical to an artist about their concert all the other good stuff I said would be that much more believable. I know it’s strange, but that’s how this weird little mind of mine works (or doesn’t, as the case may be).
I knew I was going to be driving home after this show so I ended the evening sober, and as m’lady and I walked towards our car we passed Ween’s tour bus parked behind the bar. We must have seen the band come out of the bar because we walked over.
I struck up a conversation with Deaner. I’ve met him before and he comes off as a pretty great, no-nonsense kind of guy. He asked me what I thought of the show and I told him that I had a great time but quickly asked him what he thought of the show. He said he thought it was great…why do you ask? I dug deep to find something – anything – I could criticize about the show and said the setlist seemed a bit uneven.
“What do you mean, ‘uneven’?” he asked me, cocking his head.
“I don’t know, it just seemed oddly paced,” I replied. Though out of the corner of my eye I could see the horror on m’lady’s face I still continued on, asking Deaner who had been responsible for putting together the set list.
The funniest part of the whole thing was that Gener was lurking around the entire time constantly clicking paparazzi-style photos of us. He was hiding behind the bus, ducking behind a dumpster and crouching between cars, click-click-clicking away and me and Deaner and m’lady with his 35mm camera. He avoided all eye contact with us and never said a word.
Truth be told I don’t think Deaner appreciated my critique (well, duh) and I don’t blame him a bit, a thousand times over. I sure would love to see some of Gener’s pictures though. I also wish I hadn’t lost my ticket stub, but hey…karma.
Todd Man Out 