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I don’t remember when I first noticed the Friday night lineup for the 2018 Kemptville Live! festival, but I’m pretty sure there was still snow on the ground at the time. I do remember announcing to m’lady in a loud, excited voice that “We’re going!” and when she saw the list of bands that were scheduled to play she quickly added the she would definitely be doing the driving.
Trooper, Kim Mitchell, and Loverboy. Not only was it a triple-whammy slam dunk of Canadian classic rock gold, for me personally it marked a triumvirate of nostalgia touching upon three very distinct resonating pockets. Trooper stood for the outward classic rocker in me. Their Hotshots record is chock-a-block with uncanny, unique, nearly perfect ’70’s pop songs that bleed Canadiana like a beaver bleeding maple syrup.
Oh, to stand in the sun and take in their opening set with a handful of plastic beer and a body full of anticipation for the rest of the night…
Aside from his own unique and cleverly catchy solo career, Kim Mitchell stands to me as the heart and soul of the greatest rock band of all time, Max Webster. And while I would be thrilled to watch the skinny under-rated guitar god go through his inevitable run of songs like All We Are, Patio Lanterns, Rock And Roll Duty, I Am A Wild Party, Lager & Ale, and Go For A Soda, I would be waiting, waiting waiting for a brief glimpse of his past glory with one (could I even hope for two?) Max Webster favourites. Diamonds, Diamonds? High Class And Borrowed Shoes? Maybe even (dare I?) The Party?
Oh, I was so excited.
And then, finally, there would be Loverboy. Cast your eyes back, deep and long ago in these ticket tales and you will note that the show that started the whole ball rolling, the concert that made me walk out of the arena promising myself I’d go to every concert that ever came close for the rest of my life, my first-ever real-live live musical experience was seeing Loverboy with opening act The Headpins at the Moncton Coliseum on August 19th, 1983. I had not seen them since, but I still knew every word of every song, of that I was sure.
So, loaded up with all that wonderful musical baggage, on July 20th, 2018 m’lady wound our car through the Ottawa rush hour traffic to Kemptville, where I urged her to park us in a semi-illegal non-spot next to a dumpster. Immediately upon exiting the vehicle the whole night began to ravel (or unravel, if you’d like; “ravel” and “unraveI” are synonyms). I struck up a conversation with some tailgaters and was told that Kim Mitchell had cancelled his appearance that very morning, only to have been replaced by Honeymoon Suite.
I would suggest that you let that sink in for a moment, but I doubt if many of you can really appreciate the magnitude that insult was to my rock and roll skandas. Sure (you might say), Honeymoon Suite wasn’t your favourite band or anything but c’mon, they are part of Canada’s nostalgic, casino-touring MuchMusic royalty just as much as Kim Mitchell is.
To which I say to you: phooey.
But you must admit (you are probably further saying) that the festival did a pretty amazing job finding an act of some stature quite literally at the last minute? To which I would grumpily reply: yeah, I guess.
I came so very close to suggesting we just get back in the car and go home. But we had just battled all that traffic and we had scored a pretty good parking spot so hell, we dropped $50 each and went in.
(For the record, there was no mention whatsoever at the box office of the change in the evening’s lineup. I asked if the rumour was true and was told that yes, it was, but there was no signage at all, which I thought was pretty lame. But I was admittedly in a bit of a foul mood at the time.)
I went in and bought a huge strip of drink tickets and started cashing them in as fast as I could. Honeymoon Suite came on first, stealing Troopers sunshine (literally), and further got me down by putting in an admirably good show whereas I really wanted them to suck. Wave Babies, Stay In The Light, New Girl Now; you get the idea, but imagine it with a surprisingly good guitar player.
Trooper, on the other hand, sucked when I wanted them to rock. They opened with We’re Here For A Good Time with the sun just getting ready to set – which was pretty great – but everything went downhill from there. I was singing along to every word, but my backup band up there on the stage sounded pretty uninspired in comparison.
Somewhere in there m’lady and I shared a Blooming Onion for dinner. My gulliver was still chock full at the end of the night. Weird that we made an entire meal out of onion and batter. “And dipping sauce!” added m’lady.
I tried so very hard to be past my disappointment by the time Loverboy was ready to come on, and I think I succeeded, but when I saw Mike Reno for the first time in thirty-five years my little rock and roll heart sank. Currently weighing in at a full two and-a-half former Mike Reno’s, Loverboy’s lead singer is leather-clad no more; they don’t make cows big enough. Here’s a guy who is clearly no stranger to making meals of batter and dipping sauce, but y’know, he still sounded just like Mike Reno.
Now, clearly there was some heavy fat-shaming in that last paragraph, and that’s something I think, hope, and expect that I’m not prone to doing. I guess I was just really shocked to see how much Mike Reno had changed since I was fifteen.
The Kid Is Hot Tonight, Turn Me Loose, Working For The Weekend…I tried so hard to go back to my first time, to relive that excitement that changed the course of my life, but every time I looked at the stage I could see that it was all just a huge facade; though the music was the same everything else had changed beyond recognition. Life, experience, education, travel, and countless cheeseburgers had altered the world so much that there was no way Loverboy’s old, perfectly performed, unchanged music could have the same effect on me as it once did. Oh, how the power had faded.
The one, truly great moment of the evening was when Loverboy shocked me by playing their quirky, angular rocker Take Me To The Top. To me that song was the unsung hero of their second album, and way back then it was the first time my young ears had ever heard wah-wah guitar. With my eyes closed tight and my fists held high I almost got the time machine working.
Almost.
In the end we decided to beat the traffic and walked out during the encore: Lovin’ Every Minute Of It. I’m not crazy about their new stuff anyway.
I don’t say this very often – not even for the stinkers – but I regret going to this concert. I wish we had turned around and driven back to Ottawa the moment we confirmed Kim Mitchell was out. His absence skewed my elongated expectations and under those circumstances seeing Loverboy again became a mistake. Trooper is just a mistake all their own. Okay, Honeymoon Suite was good but at the time I wasn’t. The bottom line is:
You can never go back home again, and pity to those who try.
Todd Man Out 