BNL@GM.VAN.BC.CA March 7,2001
Mar 08 '01
The Bottom Line If, like me, you only see two or three live shows a year, just make sure this is one of them.
General Motors Place, downtown Vancouver. It's dark but mild after a sunny day in the late winter. Last stop on the Maroon Tour.
The gathering crowd is happy. They're smiling, bouncing, laughing. They're excited. They've come to see Barenaked Ladies. Who wouldn't be thrilled? I've seen BNL once before in Seattle -- with Sixpence None the Richer and Dido -- and thoroughly enjoyed it.
A charitable crowd gave a warm reception to a passable Chantal Kreviazuk, who merits a separate review. But that's for another time; to quote Young Fresh Fellows, this one's for the Ladies!
Their stage is great. Four large screens carry closeups for those unlucky souls (such as myself) in the balcony seats. I'm going to edit my review of GM Place... great for hockey games, but not so hot for concerts when you're two stories up. Two curved staircases at opposite sides of the stage give a sort of Broadway musical effect. The gigantic inflatable Medusa head at centre stage is very strange. The Ladies enter and exit the stage through her mouth.
One thing I've noticed about BNL is that they do not go overboard changing their songs for live performances. If I Had a Million Dollars and Lovers in a Dangerous Time still sound the same. So does the show get boring?
Not at all. What Barenaked Ladies do better than any other band is improvise. In every show they do at least a couple of improvised rap tunes, usually about stuff they did that day in the city, or whatever event is happening at the time (such as Christmas). They are always very funny, and sound as though they were prepared earlier, which they are not. If they were, Steven would have had time to think of a word to rhyme with "gonch."
They also do a wicked medley of current tunes, somewhat reminiscent of Weird Al Yankovic's polkas but not nearly as corny. They ripped from such pop icons as Eminem, N Sync, Nelly Furtado and Britney Spears.
I have to admit that I cringed during "If I Had a Million Dollars." Vancouver is known for having the worst, most disrespectful concert crowds in the country. I was waiting for Steven or Ed to be pelted with boxes of Kraft Dinner, thrown by drunken louts who haven't figured out that the joke's over. Instead, all that happened was one of the front row sitters held up a t-shirt which proudly said "Gotta be KD." I was very relieved. If you wonder why that might be such a stressful experience for me, this is the city that only a few years ago saw concert goers fling lit cigarettes at Steven on stage.
Each of the three background band members got at least one solo, each of which was both funny and exhibiting a ridiculously high level of skill. That's why the band just keeps getting better.
The crowd was so excited we did the wave while we were waiting for the show to start. Not bad for a stadium that was about 2,000 seats short of selling out. (2,000 empty seats in a city that complains there's nothing to do)
With typical BNL wit, they apologized for not being able to seat anyone in the end sections because the seats had just been painted. Or the corner section because Ed had examined the seats there earlier and found them not to be ISO 9002 compliant.
The tour is over now, so if you missed it, you're out of luck. But they'll tour again, and when they do, make sure you're one of the lucky ones with tickets, and for Pete's sake, get good seats. Anything more than 100 feet from the stage is unacceptable.
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Epinions.com ID:
livewire_
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Member: Live Wire
Location: Vancouver
Reviews written: 80
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