The band had a funny gag going on throughout the night: they had a faux radio DJ dubbed Skip Lowe "broadcasting" between sets and interacting with the band while they were on stage. His "station" was 108.8 MRCH and he was stationed at the merch table (get it?); he would play fake and real commercials (including the old Meow Mix jingle) and pump up the crowd to buy stuff. He also came on between songs when the band members were switching instruments. Kinda reminded me of Roger Waters' Radio KAOS tour, only not as pompous.
Sloan played a bunch of stuff from their great new album Parallel Play and several songs from their last one, Never Hear the End of It. They also dug deep and played some songs I hadn't heard in years, like "G Turns to D," which is one of my favorites. For the encore, they took some requests and actually brought up some fans to sing the songs with mixed results. The first jamoke tried to sing "The Lines You Amend" but was just goofing off and didn't really know the words, so it kinda sucked. The second guy was into it and did a decent job with "I Can Feel It." All in all, a great, late night.
Break out the victory cigar:
- Congrats to the Celtics, who emphatically won the NBA championship Tuesday night with a 131-92 ass-whupping of the LA Lakers to take the series 4-2. Today, the Celts held a rolling victory rally through the city. Man, this stuff is getting to be like old hat around here. The Sox have won two championships in the last five years and the Patriots have won three since 2001. Sports fans really have nothing to complain about (unless they're Bruins fans, but even that time had an encouraging playoff showing this year), but of course, they'll find something. You want misery, try rooting for Toronto teams. It's painful, man.
- Crazy stuff going on in NYC, where the NHL today threatened to take action against Madison Square Garden, which owns the Rangers, in retaliation for a lawsuit filed by MSG against the league. MSG filed an antitrust suit to prevent the NHL from incorporating the Rangers' web site into NHL.com. First Isiah Thomas and now this. MSG's running a tight ship over there.
- Speaking of crazimafied, severed feet have washing up on on the shores of British Columbia in recent months. A sixth foot turned up yesterday, but it was found to be a hoax; it was actually an animal paw stuffed into a man's sneaker. Still, it's a freaky deaky mystery.
3 comments:
Jay -- As for "MSG running a tight ship," they're running a stupid ship. Dad Dolan created a successful business with Cablevision, and Jimmy Dolan is an example of an indulged son who ruins a business. I'm a long-time Celtics fan but respect the Knicks based on the rivalry from years ago.
Jim
Oh, I totally agree. I was being sarcastic. MSG is one of the worst run operations around, at least as far as its sports teams go. The Rangers have been better on the ice the last few years and the less said about the Knicks, the better. Apparently, Jerry Jones filed a similar suit against the NFL a few years back, but he's not exactly a model owner, either.
Jay -- I must have been weary when I read your posting about MSG, because I missed one of your good barbs. About ten years ago, Cablevision acquired the metro NYC electronics chain Nobody Beats the Wiz with the claimed vision that it would give them a retail store platform to cross-sell its cable and internet products. Absolutely nuts. Anyone with a touch of business sense could see there's not confluence and totally different skill sets required. I wonder if young Jimmy Dolan was behind that decision, too. In 2001 I had a job interview at Cablevision. I was a top candidate, but the boss hired someone with telcom experience. He did me a favor.
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