Canadian Days: Playing Good-Will Ambassador For Sloan

Most people who know me know how much I love music. I'm always listening to music and I rarely go anywhere without my MP3 player. I also buy at least one new album a month and I have aspirations of being a rock journalist. I eat, breath and live music, and since I'm so passionate about music I'm always eager to expose my friends to the music I'm passionate about, especially to bands who are worthy of having a bigger audience. These artists need all the exposure they can get, and since I'm one of their dedicated fans I have no problem doing all I can for them. After all, if it wasn't for people like me--people who'll buy almost everything these bands will release--these bands would have a harder time making a living as musicians, and it would be a shame if these people quit making music for financial reasons.

The WinterCity festival in Toronto gave me a chance to spread the word about my favorite Canadian band, Sloan, who are always in need of converts so they can continue to make records.
The WinterCity festival is a huge arty event. Over two weeks the city of Toronto puts on an extravaganza of what it has to offer: a vibrant arts scene, great food, the ability to bring in Canada's most popular performers and free concerts. Since Sloan were playing in the festival it was prime time to play good-will ambassador for them. And since the concert was free the people I would be trying to convert to the band wouldn't have much to lose. If they didn't like them they couldn't gripe to me about how they lost 10 to 15 dollars. I hyped up how good Sloan were to my friends. I'd been a Sloan fan for awhile, and had all their albums. I described them as "Canada's finest," and that they were the band I wanted to see the most in Canada.

The evening got off to a promising start. My friends and I headed down to Nathan's Phillips Square where Sloan would be taking the stage, and a medium-sized crowed was out there, eagerly anticipating Canada's finest. Right before Sloan took the stage MuchMusic* introduced the band as "the east coast legends." I felt what I had told my friends about the band had been vindicated with good reason. Everything was falling into place. I had gotten my friends out there in the bitter cold just to see Sloan, and MuchMoreTV had backed up what I had said to my friends about the band. Now all Sloan had to do was rock their way to glory, and they'd have some new converts on their hands, courtesy of me.

But things did not go according to plan. The concert got off to a good start. Sloan played a stomping version of "Who Taught You to Live Like That?" But after that the concert devolved into Sloan ploughing there way through the new songs off their new album "Never Hear The End of It," which didn't go over as well as their earlier material. The songs off "Never Hear The End of It" aren't bad, and I consider the album as the ultimate Sloan record. "Never Hear The End of It" is the most ambitious Sloan record. It consists of 30 songs and represents a culmination of everything the band has ever done. It just doesn't translate well live. The album is similar to "Abbey Road." The second half of that record consist of short songs that immediately phase into each other. It's more of a theatrical performance than a collection of individual songs, and "Never Hear The End of It" is the same way throughout the entire record. There are only a handful of songs that could be singles, which are the songs that would be more suited for a live performance. Compounding the problem is most of the songs on the album are complicated; the songs tend to go through alot of changes, and songs like that are hard on the ears. It's the sort of record you'd have to listen to five or six times before you started to like, and the record you'd think twice about giving someone in effort to convert them to Sloan.

At mid-set my friend Cassie taped me on the shoulder and told me she was leaving. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was not impressed. I looked back and saw all my other friends had left. This was embarrassing. I told Cassie O. K., and then she left me out there in the bitter cold. All my efforts to convert my friends to the good cause that is Sloan had been in vain. And what made my efforts even more pointless was the fact that as Cassie left Sloan launched into their classic material, which is what everybody had been waiting for, and the concert took off. As Sloan played these songs the crowd showed more enthusiasm, and Sloan were finally on their way to rocking their way to glory. After "Money City Maniac's" Patrick Pentland, one of the guitarists in the band, shook his fist in the air, as if Sloan had finally conquered the day. But for my friends it was too late.


*MuchMusic is Canada's version of MTV.