2006-11-16 - 2:36

Feedback losers

As usual, most of the news since I last wrote is of the musical variety. On the downside, EB screwed up my reservation for Guitar Hero 2 and it seems to be sold out everywhere, so I'm stuck waiting for their next shipment. However, I did get to play it at Aaron's place on the weekend; and it is as kick-ass as expected. They added quite a few improvements but I think that the best part was the encore system, mainly because of how they handled the last song in the game.

As for non-simulated music, a couple of great concerts took place at the Capital Music Hall in the past few days. Friday saw Jurassic 5 come to town, who I saw with Aaron and Loralei, while last night was The Dears, which a whole crew of us attended. Even though the new J5 album is only so-so (what the hell were they thinking with "Brown Girl"?), they still rocked live.

They're one of those bands that comes out strong and just rattles off the songs at a great pace, with no real let-down. I have to say that the crowd was one of the best that I have been a part of in this city, too: very loud and energetic. Cadence Weapon was also strong as the opener, which helped add up to a solid show. You can read my real recap, if you want more details.

As for The Dears, what can I say? If you're reading this, you probably already know that they're pretty much my favourite live act. This was the eleventh time that I've seen them live and they were stellar again. I really like the line-up that the band has settled into, as Val�rie seems very comfortable on stage now and Krief is a fun guitarist to watch. Oh, and the band had a very friendly roadie, too, who laid down an excessive number of setlists, one of which I came home with. If you want, you can see that along with my full recap here.

I was chatting with a couple of guys at the show, one of whom said that he requested the same song that I did during the encore of The New Pornographers, so I guess that the band may or may not have been responding to me when they took it. I'll continue to claim it as mine, though, much as I continue to insist that I can see my bald head in the crowd scene on that Rollins Band live album.

And finally, tickets went on sale today for Slayer! Of course, I have my ticket for the floor. I'm getting too old for the mosh, so maybe this'll be the one that kills me; but I'm sure it'd be worth it.

Oh, I meant to write about the municipal election too, but I'm running out of steam. The summary is that people voted very strongly for a new mayor, presumably out of a desire for change, but they voted in pretty much exactly the same council, which I don't understand. The incumbent won in every ward, so new faces were only added because a couple of councillors didn't run for reelection and the city created new wards. I was hoping that we'd get rid of some knuckleheads but it didn't work out. Now I have to wait for the provincial election to hopefully see some people get the boot.

J.