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Monday, April 02, 2007
All Hail V Be warned, people in their mid-to-late twenties: you are about to enter the realm of Nostalgia Rock. The bands you used to love when you were younger, bands that no longer get much time on your stereo, bands that get no buzz or mainstream exposure anymore, they'll come back in your life via a live show. I found myself tightly gripped in its midst on Saturday night, for in a way, I saw the most favouritest band of mine during my high school years: Veruca Salt.
There I was, in the sucky-sounding Plaza, watching the stunning Charlotte Martin open the show (solo on keys plus drummer), and all I could think about was the piece of paper taped to the stage. It was the set list for the headliner of the night, a band featuring the co-frontwoman of Veruca Salt, which also happens to call themselves Veruca Salt, who would sometimes play Veruca Salt songs. The words on that piece of paper, even the ones that weren't full song titles, words like "Spiderman" and "Europe", immediately brought me back 10 years. Nostalgia can be a powerful thing.
See, when Louise Post decided to carry on the VS name, I wasn't terribly happy. Veruca Salt had always been about the interplay between Louise and Nina Gordon, the yang and the yin, respectively. Whereas Louise was the brasher and more FUCK-YOU half, Nina was the sweeter and more kiss-me half. The contrast tempered the extremes, and created a dynamic that made them especially interesting to me.
The two records that the Nina-less VS released, 2000's Resolver and last year's IV, were merely ho-hum affairs. I gave them a few listens, found little on them that I cared for, and simply filed them away. Predictably, those albums were harder and less poppy, just what you'd expect a Louise Post album would sound like. If half the album sounded like that, and half had the sweetness-tinged Nina tunes, then it'd be fine. But it was just Louise. Rocking out. Hmmm. As well, the band is portraying itself as more of a stereotypical Rock Band, meaning more douche-baggy. Another strike against them.
So when it was announced that Louise and friends will be coming to Vancouver, I shrugged and decided to go, mostly out of obligation. Because of what the name Veruca Salt now represented, I wasn't terribly excited. In fact, I almost considered not going on the day of the show. Oh, how glad I was that I dragged my ass downtown.
When Louise Post walked on stage, it was apparently that she ain't no spring chicken no' mo'. Red dress, black boots, and thick arms ready to play the shit out of her flying V, it was obvious that she's been around. Her new bassist is cute though. She looks just enough like a young Nina Gordon for it to be creepy.
The band was preceded by some dude from CFOX, talking some shit. "Oh crap," I thought. It's going to be one of those shows. You know the ones. Devil horns, douche bags and drunk chicks trying to "mosh." You know, a CFOX crowd. While most of that turned out to be true, there was one thing I hadn't counted on: the audience would be full of people like me.
No, not Asian music geeks who write long blog posts about the shows they've gone to -- I'm talking about people who loved the old Veruca Salt, people who've loved them for as long as I have, people who've committed their melodies and lyrics to heart, people for whom the music of Veruca Salt had captured a part of their lives, people who've waited over 10 years to see them.
It makes sense, I guess. I mean, who else would pay $25 to see a band with no buzz, no major label or radio support, touring behind a name that hasn't been in the music mainstream for nearly a decade? That fact just hadn't occurred to me until the third song of the set, the first real Veruca Salt song, the second single off 1997's Eight Arms to Hold You, the song they played on SNL all those years ago: "Shutterbug."
As soon as the bass intro started, the pretty-dense crowd erupted in cheer. It was spontaneous. People knew the song. People knew the song! "It's freezing in Bristol," the crowd sang. "There's love on the tele," we continued, in unison. "A girl grinning at me. She's doing the shimmy." Dun-dun-dun-DA! The room just exploded. And it was like that for every real Veruca Salt song that was played (defined as Nina-era VS), even the non-single track off their EP, Blow It Out Your Ass It's Veruca Salt, "I'm Taking Europe With Me." It was unreal.
About half the set was drawn from the real VS catalogue. Louise even sang the band's biggest singles, the Nina-penned "Seether" and "Volcano Girls." It was nice to hear those songs live after all these years, but since they were originally sung by Nina, something felt off. But when they did Louise songs, I fucking lost my mind.
I don't think I've ever sung/screamed that loud at a show before, and rarely have I jumped up and down so frantically either. For those of you who've been to shows with me, you could just imagine how crazy that/I was. "Spiderman '79", "Don't Make Me Prove It," "One Last Time," "Straight," "Victrola," even part of "Celebrate You" -- pretty much the bulk of Louise's contributions to real Veruca Salt -- during those songs, it was like I was watching the real thing. Nina's guitar was never really that distinctive anyway, so when Louise was singing, that was just Veruca Salt. So in a way, there was still some real Veruca Salt left in what is left of the name.
For the encore, they trotted out what we wanted: old songs. Louise did an acappella version of "One Last Time", the audience singing along to every word. She then did "All Hail Me" and "Victrola", closing the thing with "Seether," during which she invited the girls from the audience to sing and dance on stage. It was a bit contrived, but still pretty cool.
I'm not going to dwell on the negatives of the night (drunk "moshers", bad sound, fake Veruca Salt songs, etc.), so I'll just say this: it was a totally fucking awesome experience. When I missed Veruca Salt's last and only other time in Vancouver, opening for Bush(X) the night before my Physics 11 exam, I was devastated. I even went to their autograph signing at the Virgin Megastore the day before, lining up way beforehand just to get a glimpse and a few scribbles from my heroes. On Saturday night, I saw one of them play songs that I've adored for more than a decade. The awesomeness of that could not be put into words.
NP: (nothing)
posted by Hanson |
12:12 AM
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