Sloan

Alrighty then... I'm gonna level with ya. I'm an honest fucker and I'll tell ya honestly, the first time I heard of a band called Sloan I said "what kinda name is that for a band?" Who the fuck is Sloan? Is he Weezer's brother? Or Beck's butt buddy? Sloan. Well that's the old cock rock mentality creeping back in and I think for once and for all this guy named Sloan kicked the living shit outta David Lee Roth and Gene Simmons at the same time (see the Kiss review to get a full understanding of what I grew up thinking a rock star was all about) and proved to me once again that the name don't mean Jack Shit. Sloan is a really good bunch of guys with a really good bunch of tunes.

I sat there one day listening to the radio, which I don't do very often, and I heard "She Says What She Means". I thought, who the hell is this? They announced Sloan. An eyebrow pops up... hmmmm... I know these guys have some pretty good tunes but what ARE they? So I acquired some of their music from a friend and started feeding myself a strictly Sloan diet over the next few days.

Well lo and behold if I didn't feel like a million bucks over those few days. I had to attribute it to my Sloan diet. I was humming along to all these Sloan tunes and I checked out the web site and then I was stumbling around downtown the one day and there it was... a poster for a Sloan concert at the University of Guelph. So I got me a couple tix and eagerly awaited my next review. I showed up early that night and found security to get the rules of the venue. Found the band at the campus bar, nobody around I might add, and asked if I could shoot that night. Chris looked at my little Canon Digital Rebel and said hell yeah, as long as you're not using any "ridiculous" lenses... so I pulled out my Canon AE-1 with the giant ridiculous lens on it and said, "like this one?"... and he said yeah but didn't seem too worried about it, he just kinda shrugged it off. So I get to the front of the lineup cuz there's no fuckin way I'm waiting at the back seeing as I've been there trying to get set up to shoot the show since way before any of these other people showed up. I met these three guys who were just baked. I immediately started bugging the one kid cuz I seriously haven't seen anyone that stoned in a long time. We got in and went straight to the middle front row. Pole position baby. That's all I need. A barricade to hold on to and the ok from the band and I'm shooting all night long. Good luck to any bastard who's gonna try and take my spot. So the show fires up and every tune I heard I knew except a couple that I've heard but didn't KNOW. Just look at the set list below and almost every tune is a sing along type of song. Everyone knew almost every tune they played. It's just damn good music. Some of it with a sense of humour and some just to let you know "what rock n roll is all about". I knew as soon as I heard buddy say that at the beginning of "If It Feels Good Do It" that someone in the band must be a Kiss fan... sure enough, Patrick has a Kiss sticker on his guitar but I couldn't tell until I looked at someone else's photos! One of the things I found ultra cool was the way they switch up their instruments. All of a sudden, Chris, the bassist, is sitting at the drums while Andrew, the drummer, picks up a guitar and grabs a microphone, and Jay jumps over to bass.

You don't see that very often but it was definitely a welcome change thanks very much. Now I'm gonna go out on another limb here. I did it with their name already... some of you probably hate me now... boo fuckin hoo... but here I go again... same limb... further out. I got this feeling at this show that's kinda hard to explain without offending some people who will read this wrong. Know right now that this isn't to put down Sloan or in particular Chris in any way shape or form but I had the feeling I was watching Napoleon Dynamite playing the bass. Now Napoleon is the epitome of the geek and I wouldn't say Chris is as well but I would say that I'm sure he's had his share of being bounced into a few lockers in his time and probably knows what it's like to have been treated like a fuckin geek maybe once or twice in his life. As do I and most of us in this world at one point or another. So being a HUGE Napoleon Dynamite fan, I've seen the movie about 10 times, I found myself liking Sloan even that much more. Especially when Chris is givin er, rockin right out and his glasses go flying off, or he's pushing them up with the microphone or a drum stick without missing a beat every 30 seconds or so. You just get this feeling of pure humanity on stage. It's like looking into a mirror and saying that coulda been me. Seriously.. I played a bit of bass guitar, some 6 string and a bunch of drums and if I showed you my high school pic you'd swear it was Chris, Hyde from That 70's Show or David Koresh (the Waco Texas guy). So there you have it. The only bad thing I can say is that the tune that really got me into Sloan wasn't even played at the show!!! She Says What She Means is definitely my favorite Sloan tune. I shoulda yelled it from front row, maybe they woulda played it? I always end up a review of a band I really like by saying a couple things. One is buy their CDs dammit. Cuz without CD sales, you don't see anybody touring the next year cuz nobody's gonna tour around on buttons and a fuckin smile. Two... go see them when they are touring. You won't be sorry. You'll be singing, clapping, remembering almost every tune you hear that night. Now go fuck off... you're botherin me kid.

Sloan Official Web Site

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