Post by adamclark52 on Dec 30, 2018 0:43:33 GMT -5
The Tea Party
Support: some lousy DJ
Date: Saturday December 29th, 2018
Venue: the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto, Ontario
The opener was some DJ who played remixes of every song from the radio that I hate. They may have actually just been the songs with drumbeats added under them. Whatever. I like DJs but if I’m going to go watch one I’m not going to watch one who’s playing Franz Ferdinand and Jane’s Addiction songs. It was like being at a cool wedding. As if such a thing exists. Weddings are nothing but pain and misery.
The Tea Party are the first band I ever saw live; on Christmas Break in 1995. I don’t know the exact date and no records of the show exist online so this show may very well have happened on the twenty-third anniversary of the first concert I ever attended. I saw them a second time last March and decided to bring my wife out to this show because I thought she’d recognize a lot of the songs. Anyone from outside Canada probably doesn’t even know who the Tea Party are but they were rock gods in Canada from 1993 to around 2000. They were around until around 2004 then they went on hiatus, returning in 2011.
The last time I saw them was an anniversary tour for their 1997 album ‘Transmission’, where they played the album in full then did a short set of hits afterwards. I said then that I’d have much rather just a greatest hits tour and thankfully this is one. It’s called “the Black River tour” but from all I can tell that’s just a new song they put out a month or two ago. The first half of the set was f***ing awesome minus the first two songs (one of which was the new song no one knew existed and the other was a single from the period when they kinda started disappearing). Save Me/the Messenger was especially good because those are two of my favourite songs of theirs. But things hit a wall when they granted some guys wish to propose to his girlfriend. Then they played some good songs but they relied too much on covers (which were all played as mid-sections to their own songs). I didn’t mind the U2 cover and the Pink Floyd one was actually really good but I really don’t care for Heroes by David Bowie. I was disappointed by the rendition of Sister Awake that closed the set. It wasn’t as fierce and throbbing as on album.
The band still sound really good and Jeff Martin is a wicked guitar player. While the band is really good live I think they may be actually better on album. Some of their improvisation just doesn’t work for me. They’re touring Canada all in spring but I really have zero desire to see them again for a while. Maybe in another five years or so.
The Tea Party
1. Black River
2. Writings on the Wall
3. Psychopomp
4. Fire in the Head
5. Haze on the Hills
6. The Majestic Song
7. Release
8. Save Me/the Messenger
- {a f***ing marriage proposal}
9. Heavens Coming Down/With or Without You (U2 cover)
10. The Oceans at the End w/Any Colour You Like (Pink Floyd cover)
11. Temptation w/the River solo
12. Winter Solstice
13. Sister Awake/Paint it Black (Rolling Stones cover)/Heroes (David Bowie cover)
So barring me finding something incredible in the next forty-eight hours this closes out my concert calendar for 2018. It was a really good year for me. I saw one hundred and sixty-one bands/acts play across fifty-four shows. I'll be posting a year-end list of my bests and worsts in the days to come.
