Tonight’s show capped off a weekend of surprisingly entertaining shows. Bands I expected to hate turned out to be my new favorite band, if only for the night, while bands I’d seen before turned in better performances than previously. And a band I hadn’t seen before turned out to be even more entertaining and adorable than I had thought possible. I’d always enjoyed the Weakerthans in Michelle’s car, but in my mind they were just the Canadian Fountains of Wayne. I only saw half of last summer’s FoW acoustic show, but their condescending air of superiority (whether real or imagined) kept me from fully enjoying the dozen songs I had just paid twenty bucks to see. The Weakerthans, on the other hand, could not have been more down to earth, from their boyish enthusiasm and good looks to their goofy demeanor. They were having fun, and therefore so did I.
Despite the fact that the High Noon was close to sold out, I felt like I was in some parallel universe version of my favorite bar. Other than the people I was there with, the staff and Marco Pogo (whose sweaty jostling and inability to stand still for one second was somehow more annoying than usual), I didn’t know anyone there- a strange feeling when I am accustomed to always knowing, or at least recognizing, a good portion of the crowd. One thing for sure, these folks were certainly fans, singing along to every song and cheering enthusiastically at its end. They haven’t had a new release since 2007’s amusingly titled Reunion Tour, so the set list was spread out over all their records. I felt a little out of place among the super fans, but I recognized more songs than I would have expected considering I don’t actually own any of their CDs.
The main reason for that is the abundance of memorable lyrics. From the first time I heard it, my favorite line has been “I rely too heavily on alcohol and irony,” as much for its profundity as for its truth. They occasionally teeter dangerously close to being too clever with interjections like “sitting on the fence between past and present tense,” but ultimately you find them stuck in your head for so long they become indistinguishable from your own thoughts. I am now just as likely to sing “I’m not entirely sure what you’re talking about,” as I am to shrug “huh?” And I won’t ever hear a certain Canadian town mentioned without thinking “I hate Winnipeg,” even though I don’t mean it any more than they do. As charming as they were all night perhaps the too-cute moment was when lead singer John K. Sampson balanced his guitar on his head and proceeded to play the rest of the song with it there, causing guitarist Stephen Carroll to towel him off and then wrap the towel around his shoulders.
If fact, the only thing I didn’t like about the Weakerthans was their over-priced merch (which didn’t stop me from buying a $25 T-shirt) and their choice of opening band. Rock Plaza Central sounded like Fleet Foxes would if none of them could sing. Believe me, everyone does not need a microphone. But those are small complaints for such an entertaining evening. I won’t miss them again.
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