Last Updated on: 30th January 2014, 10:12 am
That’s right, in spite of the best efforts of the universe (under no circumstances should any of you get this cold and thank you, terminally inconsiderate yet unintentionally helpful event schedulers), the curse is no more!
It was certainly worth the wait. They were funny, they played a nice mix of new stuff and classics and they even did one of the famous medleys of pop songs I’ve always wanted to see. Oh, and there was a Led Zeppelin cover as part of the encore. That was just about the last thing I expected to hear.
But as much as I enjoyed the show I do have to admit that it was strange, and for exactly the reason I thought it might be. Like I said, you don’t just go out and replace a Steven Page. The rest of the guys did the absolute best they could to fill that void, but not hearing Steven Page where you expect to hear Steven Page gave the night a bit of an odd feeling. I wouldn’t say it really made me enjoy the show any less, but it was one of those things that was a bit…I’m not sure if jarring is quite the right word, but it’s the closest I can come up with at the moment. Every time there was an obvious moment where his voice would go, I needed to remind myself that even though it isn’t normal, it’s normal now.
To be fair, Steven Page has a luxury that the rest of the band doesn’t. He’s able to mix his solo work with well known BNL songs that are 100% identifiable with him. It’s the same thing that allows Jim Cuddy shows to work so well. You get the solo experience mixed in with what he’s most famous for. But Blue Rodeo without Jim Cuddy would be as weird as Barenaked Ladies without Steven Page. It’ll probably work well enough because of the talent level of everyone else, but you won’t be able to not notice that Greg Keelor is singing lead on Til I Am Myself Again.
But don’t let any of that stop you from seeing them if you get the chance. I certainly won’t, curse willing, of course.
Here are some of the songs they played from their newish album, which I’m going to need to buy now. Barenaked Ladies – Smile
They had us all sing along with this one. Feel free to join in, since there’s a good chance it’ll be following you around for the rest of the day.
Yay! So glad the curse was broken! And new lead singer? Wow odd.
Not a new lead singer. Just Ed,the other main singer, is now singing basically everything. And where the Steven Page parts would go in the Ed songs, the other guys in the band are doing it. It takes some getting used to.
I’m glad the curse was broken, too. it was soooo close to striking again.