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2017 tour reviews

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I also remember Matt Gibby/Gibson and for some reason he got embarrassed when I recognised him one time at the Vogue, probably because I got a little too enthusiastic about it knowing me. I remember he had the band The Februarys. I don't think they're really around anymore.

I remember that guy. Matt introduced him on an episode of Much Music's Going Coastal, when they were shooting the video for In A World Called Catastrophe. It's on YouTube.

 

Also is it just me or does anyone else find him incredibly good-looking? It's no wonder he is also an actor and model. .

I do too. It looks like he works out quite regularly at the gym as well.

 

There were some kids in the audience, so that was cool. When Matt came into the crowd for Let's Get It On he sang to/near one of the little guys, put his hand on his head, rested on him etc lol. It was cool to see a kid there cause that's when I had my first show too, real young. Kid must have cool parents.

 

Matt joked about covering Lady in Red. He talked about how cats will eat you if you die.

I wish I could have seen that special moment with the little kid. If I were that kid, I would probably tell that story over and over to people when I was much older. You're right. That kid must have cool parents.

Matt sure comes up with funny stuff in his banter.

Great review, Emma. I always enjoy hearing about your concert adventures. I'm glad you got the pink setlist from Peter. Yeah, it pays to be polite sometimes.

Edited by girl
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Lastly I don't remember what happened in those old NOC/Massage Board/Metro days much but I think my handle was the same (it definitely was for APH) and to be honest I really can't remember what went on. I do remember the IRC chat room and how Matt liked to pop in there. It would be funny because I was in university at the time and feeling terribly homesick. So I would chat on there when it was late and dark out and I felt homesick. Eventually we would all be talking less and less, running out of things to say, but when Matt would pop on all of a sudden everyone would be typing at the speed of light at once.

 

Yeah it was pretty crazy on those boards. I remember the APA and Metro mostly.  Good times though.  I was called "Circum" and "BladeRunner_09" in those days.

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Emma what time are you heading to Corona today? We are a couple hours away from Montreal!

I'm about an hour and ten out now. I'm going to McGill's Improv practice first. But probably heading to the Starbucks down the street from Corona by 5 to scope the line. Maybe 4:30. It's right down the block from the theatre. Plus I have a will call ticket so I have to go before doors anyway.
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Does anyone else find it odd that the fanbase is so minuscule in Montreal?  I can't figure out the exact capacity for the Corona Theater (which looks like a beautiful venue by the way) but it seems to be in the 1000 ticket range for GA and tickets are still available.  I remember Emma telling a story about the VIP there last tour and having about a dozen people for it, and this year there is no VIP for Montreal.  I understand Matt may not have gotten a ton of airplay in Montreal over the years, but the city is absolutely massive (according to wiki nearly 4.1 million in the metro) yet MG doesn't draw 1000 fans there? Matt must have gotten far less exposure in the States and yet he could play a pretty decent crowd in at least some cities down there.  Nanaimo has a population of sub 100,000 and yet it fills the Port Theater and it's 800 seats on every visit and in a city like Campbell River with a population of 35,000 he can pack roughly 500 people into their theater.  It just totally baffles me that a city as massive as Montreal has such a paltry fanbase, I mean it's not like they didn't get Much Music in the 90's just like everyone else.  Even the Bored members here that are going to the show are coming to Montreal from out of town, so even drawing from outside it's city limits it still isn't sold out.  Am I just missing something? 

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A lot of people I spoke to last tour were from out of town too. Like a good number. New Brunswick. The States. More Ottawa.

 

It is a beautiful venue, and I think that capacity sounds about right. I dunno. I dunno why Montreal is lacking in the fan base. It's not like it's overly francophone comparitvely to the rest of Quebec. A lot of anglophones.

 

I was actually wondering to myself what the crowd will be like earlier. I have a feeling it's gonna be a 3 song encore not 4. But I would be v v v happy if it was 4. I'm hoping to get to hear Decades again. We will see.

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Quebec, Montreal included, has a strange relationship with Canadian alt-rock in general.  MG is not the only artist of his era to fall prey to this.  Sloan, I Mother Earth, Age Of Electric, Limblifter, none of these bands really took off in the way they did in the rest of Canada, and have trouble getting shows here at all.  The big exception is OLP, who have always had a large dedicated Montreal fanbase since they started out.

 

Great show as always tonight (#14 for me).  Usual amount of boneheads in the audience put a slight damper on certain parts, and something sounded strange with Jenni's (not just the 3 semitone drop), but it was still amazing to hear those BM deep cuts live for the first time.  Stu was particularly in the zone tonight, definitely my favourite performance of his from the 4 I've seen.

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Just wondering, how have everyone's VIP photos turned out? Mine is not great. The exposure is v bad. It is extremely washed out for both :/

The Calgary and Edmonton VIP photos turned out good.

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Beautiful show at the Corona Theatre last night. Encore was: Single Explosion, Born Losers, Apparitions and Weapon.

 

This show was really a special one and quite personal. It was like a giant sing along. On three occasions Matt sang standing at the edge of the stage where I was standing during suburbia, running for home and weapon, that was pretty cool. And he went into the crowd during let's get it on.

 

X-rated, Rorschach, Jenni and Machine gun were huge highlights. The Born to Kill outro though. And running for home, nicely done, wasn't quite sure how it would sound but I loved it. I haven't watched any tour videos because I wanted to save it for the actual experience. So now I have to go listen to Decades since it didn't get played. Something to look forward to for next tour.

 

Also noteworthy, Matt and the guitar tech played a joke on Stu for the load me up solo. When the tech handed Stu his hand drill, they had attached a dildo on the end of it. It's was fretty fucking funny. Emma's friend got it on video so I'm sure it will surface for everyone to see.

 

What a fantastic show all around. Now we get to go check out Montreal today and tomorrow then head back home. Thanks again to Emma for meeting up and helping me store my jacket and buy merch without losing stage real estate.

 

As much as I love every one of Matt's shows that comes around, this was far and away my favorite

Edited by mackie1023
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Wow! You guys were the ones standing in front of me! Ha ha ha! That's awesome!

 

I also love how Stu sat down with its pedal steel for Born To Kill before A Boy and His Machine Gun and quickly switched to his guitar and plugged it in a second before he was supposed to start playing! He's a ninja!

 

Matt looked tired. He was less chatty that he usually was (which could have been the bourbon :P). 

 

But the show itself was amazing and it was the first time I was in the Corona and it is a beautiful venue. I really like Craig Stickland too. 

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I also love how Stu sat down with its pedal steel for Born To Kill before A Boy and His Machine Gun and quickly switched to his guitar and plugged it in a second before he was supposed to start playing! He's a ninja!

 

 

Yes, that was really impressive!

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Ha - I was standing right there, too.  :D  Everything was amazing, except for the 6am flight back home.

 

Matt definitely looked exhausted.  I actually wondered if this tour schedule might have been a bit aggressive, given how hard he has to drive a lot of these songs.  But I'll freely admit that his effort paid off - I felt like several of the common BM songs (particularly Time Bomb) sounded better here than in much of the solo era.  Maybe it's the context?

 

I think this was my 15th MG show since 2007, and this one was especially surreal.  Nobody in my daily life knows who Matt is, and couldn't identify a single one of his songs.  To be surrounded by so many people singing along at the top of their lungs (to the album tracks) - it's like an amazing alternate reality for me.

Edited by uglyredhonda
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Also noteworthy, Matt and the guitar tech played a joke on Stu for the load me up solo. When the tech handed Stu his hand drill, they had attached a dildo on the end of it. It's was fretty fucking funny. Emma's friend got it on video so I'm sure it will surface for everyone to see.

I didn't know Stu used a hand drill. A lady posted a video of Stu in action, using the hand drill in Oshawa on Facebook's Matt Good group page. It was very cool. I never heard of such a thing. You learn something new every day. Oh, so that's where that cool guitar noise was coming from at the Grande Prairie show. I wondered how he did that. I was really digging that. Nice pictures mackie1023. You must have a nice camera. I like picture #4 with the lights. From the looks of it, you were right up against the stage.

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Ha - I was standing right there, too.  :D  Everything was amazing, except for the 6am flight back home.

 

Matt definitely looked exhausted.  I actually wondered if this tour schedule might have been a bit aggressive, given how hard he has to drive a lot of these songs.  But I'll freely admit that his effort paid off - I felt like several of the common BM songs (particularly Time Bomb) sounded better here than in much of the solo era.  Maybe it's the context?

 

I think this was my 15th MG show since 2007, and this one was especially surreal.  Nobody in my daily life knows who Matt is, and couldn't identify a single one of his songs.  To be surrounded by so many people singing along at the top of their lungs (to the album tracks) - it's like an amazing alternate reality for me.

 

Nice! I guess I kinda know what you guys look like (or not lol).

 

That's what I loved about the show. I too know nobody who knows MG. So I went all by myself as I always do. But being in a crowd with hundreds of people singing the whole record in unison, that's an awesome experience! Plus Blake and Stu are just bloody amazing!

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Also noteworthy, Matt and the guitar tech played a joke on Stu for the load me up solo. When the tech handed Stu his hand drill, they had attached a dildo on the end of it. It's was fretty fucking funny. Emma's friend got it on video so I'm sure it will surface for everyone to see.

 

I actually filmed it too. Kelly and I figured we both would so at least one video would turn out.

 

And yeah, Stu's recovery on having the wrong instrument was seamless. Very profesh dude.

 

I have more to say about the show later, but I got back to Ottawa super sick :( Silver lining but at least my body waited till after all the shows to get sick.

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Also noteworthy, Matt and the guitar tech played a joke on Stu for the load me up solo. When the tech handed Stu his hand drill, they had attached a dildo on the end of it. It's was fretty fucking funny. Emma's friend got it on video so I'm sure it will surface for everyone to see.

OK, I just saw the dildo in action in Facebook's Matt Good group page. Someone in the audience was laughing really, really hard when it happened, as they should. It was hilarious. Here's Kelly's video on YouTube. It happens at about the 2:30 mark. I wish I could have seen this with my own eyes.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey9oi7ygFZo

I won't flood this thread anymore.

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I decided in Montreal to film A Boy and His Machine Gun, since it's the one that moved me to tears in Toronto. Here's the link to that:

 

 

Sorry it's upwards phone. The way the stage is at Corona, and how close we were I couldn't turn it without cutting off too much. 

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My biggest qualm with the NAC was nobody stood up. Like nobody. I was literally the only one in the dang front row who stood up. (Briefly a really drunk lady and the man with her did, but then they sat down). Matt pointed it out too. That everyone was sitting. And said you know, there are sitting songs, and standing songs. Matt and Stu joked about needing one of those "Applause" signs but for sit/stand, but Matt said they would just fuck with everyone too much lol. (Although this whole some songs are sitting songs forced me to question whether he wanted me standing the whole time...like was I supposed to sit down?? I dunno.)

 

I didn't waste any time waiting for other people to stand up at the NAC cause it just ain't happening. I was over on Peter's side and stood up as soon as they were walking out for Giant. Stu tried to get his side to stand but they did not. It is what it is. Personally it feels weird to me to just sit there and stare at a stage from seated but whatever floats your boat I guess.

 

Saw Matt at the NAC a couple of times.  I'm from Ottawa, it's a strange town because it's a government town.  Working for the public service tends to suck the spirit out of people, so the crowds in Ottawa are very reserved.  Ottawa is a very reserved kind of city.  The people are very polite, but they are shy.  I think they want to stand up, but nobody wants to be the first ones to do it, so they get bashful and just sit...

 

Maybe 5 or 6 years ago I saw a MG show at NAC,  Everyone was of course sitting during the show, I was maybe 5-10 rows back.  I think Load Me Up or something came on and everyone stood up for that.  But after it was over I didn't want to sit down, I wanted to stand.  Most everyone else sat back down.  So it's just me and a few other people standing in the NAC, and I felt like an idiot but refused to sit because it's a damn rock concert!!  So then this woman behind me who was sitting asked me if I was going to stand the whole concert?  I said yes.  Then she got mad because I was "blocking her view".  That's how fucking lame some music lovers are in Ottawa.  If you want to sit, go watch a movie.

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Saw Matt at the NAC a couple of times.  I'm from Ottawa, it's a strange town because it's a government town.  Working for the public service tends to suck the spirit out of people, so the crowds in Ottawa are very reserved.  Ottawa is a very reserved kind of city.  The people are very polite, but they are shy.  I think they want to stand up, but nobody wants to be the first ones to do it, so they get bashful and just sit...

 

Maybe 5 or 6 years ago I saw a MG show at NAC,  Everyone was of course sitting during the show, I was maybe 5-10 rows back.  I think Load Me Up or something came on and everyone stood up for that.  But after it was over I didn't want to sit down, I wanted to stand.  Most everyone else sat back down.  So it's just me and a few other people standing in the NAC, and I felt like an idiot but refused to sit because it's a damn rock concert!!  So then this woman behind me who was sitting asked me if I was going to stand the whole concert?  I said yes.  Then she got mad because I was "blocking her view".  That's how fucking lame some music lovers are in Ottawa.  If you want to sit, go watch a movie.

 

So, at the risk of starting a inter-municipal incident, I'm actually going to slightly disagree with the flavour of Ottawa crowds. There's definitely a general attitude to a crowd, and there are some things that are representative of a city. Now, from an outsider's perspective (I am from the GTA, but I have been to Ottawa probably a hundred times if I've been once), I've always found Ottawa to be a much more impolitic place -- there are times you can cut the anglo-french tension with a knife, and I've seen probably half a dozen incidents of this interspersed among many visits. That, and people in Ottawa are also way more likely to actually talk to you in public - so many shows and social situations where someone will walk right up and say "Hey bud". I'm well aware this is all anecdotal, but my experience has shown me that Ottawa crowds blow Toronto crowds (again, in a general sense) out of the water. 

 

Now, my understanding from past posts with regards to past tours is that the NAC itself seems to be the culprit with regards to clamping down on stuff considered normal concert etiquette anywhere else. Wasn't it last tour, or maybe the one before that, where someone was saying that the NAC staff were actively telling people to stop taking pictures and video? Was there also a rule against standing during the show at this venue? I know that Massey Hall in Toronto used to be discriminating in this way also, but that seemed to abate around 08-09ish ...

 

I just know that Matt has always loved Ottawa audiences because that's one of the markets where MGB made it big first, and I think the crowds/disposition of the city have a lot to do with it. They may be reserved during the day time, but if you have ever attended a Canada Day celebration, Ottawa throws a pretty wicked party, too!

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Saw Matt at the NAC a couple of times.  I'm from Ottawa, it's a strange town because it's a government town.  Working for the public service tends to suck the spirit out of people, so the crowds in Ottawa are very reserved.  Ottawa is a very reserved kind of city.  The people are very polite, but they are shy.  I think they want to stand up, but nobody wants to be the first ones to do it, so they get bashful and just sit...

 

Maybe 5 or 6 years ago I saw a MG show at NAC,  Everyone was of course sitting during the show, I was maybe 5-10 rows back.  I think Load Me Up or something came on and everyone stood up for that.  But after it was over I didn't want to sit down, I wanted to stand.  Most everyone else sat back down.  So it's just me and a few other people standing in the NAC, and I felt like an idiot but refused to sit because it's a damn rock concert!!  So then this woman behind me who was sitting asked me if I was going to stand the whole concert?  I said yes.  Then she got mad because I was "blocking her view".  That's how fucking lame some music lovers are in Ottawa.  If you want to sit, go watch a movie.

 

 

So, at the risk of starting a inter-municipal incident, I'm actually going to slightly disagree with the flavour of Ottawa crowds. There's definitely a general attitude to a crowd, and there are some things that are representative of a city. Now, from an outsider's perspective (I am from the GTA, but I have been to Ottawa probably a hundred times if I've been once), I've always found Ottawa to be a much more impolitic place -- there are times you can cut the anglo-french tension with a knife, and I've seen probably half a dozen incidents of this interspersed among many visits. That, and people in Ottawa are also way more likely to actually talk to you in public - so many shows and social situations where someone will walk right up and say "Hey bud". I'm well aware this is all anecdotal, but my experience has shown me that Ottawa crowds blow Toronto crowds (again, in a general sense) out of the water. 

 

Now, my understanding from past posts with regards to past tours is that the NAC itself seems to be the culprit with regards to clamping down on stuff considered normal concert etiquette anywhere else. Wasn't it last tour, or maybe the one before that, where someone was saying that the NAC staff were actively telling people to stop taking pictures and video? Was there also a rule against standing during the show at this venue? I know that Massey Hall in Toronto used to be discriminating in this way also, but that seemed to abate around 08-09ish ...

 

I just know that Matt has always loved Ottawa audiences because that's one of the markets where MGB made it big first, and I think the crowds/disposition of the city have a lot to do with it. They may be reserved during the day time, but if you have ever attended a Canada Day celebration, Ottawa throws a pretty wicked party, too!

 

So I was just at the NAC March 3rd for Mother Mother, and that was not a problem there at all. A good majority of people stood up. And actually stage rushed for most of the show. 

 

Last tour at the NAC I was over by Stu, and he told us to get up. So I got up. And more people did. And the whole first two rows were all standing for the encore (a good amount for the actual show too). [This year, I saw Stu trying to get his side up but they wouldn't bite]

 

I think one of the things about the NAC is it draws an older crowd?? The tickets tend to be a bit pricier. Also it's a very classy looking hall (Southam Hall). I mean the orchestra plays in there. So I think Ottawa's polite crowd gets worried about upsetting someone else, or also being afraid to be told to sit down.

 

Now, the only venue I had problems with the actual ushers coming and making us sit down was the Grand Theatre in Kingston. But it's a very similar vibe there, just smaller.

 

The problem is Ottawa doesn't have another venue that's the right size but less uptight lol.

 

But overall, I would have to agree. Ottawa is a more reserved town. Just go to a Sens game. Much quieter than any arena you'll ever experience. It's absurd.

Edited by emmit643
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So I was just at the NAC March 3rd for Mother Mother, and that was not a problem there at all. A good majority of people stood up. And actually stage rushed for most of the show. 

 

Last tour at the NAC I was over by Stu, and he told us to get up. So I got up. And more people did. And the whole first two rows were all standing for the encore (a good amount for the actual show too). [This year, I saw Stu trying to get his side up but they wouldn't bite]

 

I think one of the things about the NAC is it draws an older crowd?? The tickets tend to be a bit pricier. Also it's a very classy looking hall (Southam Hall). I mean the orchestra plays in there. So I think Ottawa's polite crowd gets worried about upsetting someone else, or also being afraid to be told to sit down.

 

Now, the only venue I had problems with the actual ushers coming and making us sit down was the Grand Theatre in Kingston. But it's a very similar vibe there, just smaller.

 

The problem is Ottawa doesn't have another venue that's the right size but less uptight lol.

 

But overall, I would have to agree. Ottawa is a more reserved town. Just go to a Sens game. Much quieter than any arena you'll ever experience. It's absurd.

Hmm ... the more discussion about this and the more it seems like demographics with regards to place and age. I went to see the Tea Party in Brantford recently ... another 90's band with the same general demo as Matt but it was a wild crowd that looked to wanna get obliterated that night and skewed older as well... it's interesting the different vibes people can get.

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