The end of the year gives bloggers and lazy journalists something to write about. So I figured I’d chime in about the best shows I saw this year. Anyone who knows me knows music is a big passion of mine, and I take any opportunity to hear anything live. 2008 was one of the best years for live music I’ve ever experienced, but this year wasn’t too bad either. So here’s where I had fun this year:

Slayer
MTS Centre
June 27
Regardless of the stigma that’s linked to a band like Slayer, their live show is something everyone needs to experience. Amazing dedicated fans and some of the tightest music anyone can ever see live. I’ve seen them many times over the years and this was the best performance I’ve ever witnessed. What’s more impressive is that these dudes are all pushing 50 and they can still lay down thrash metal better than anyone else. And having Megadeth open was just a pleasant added bonus.

Neko Case
Winnipeg Folk Festival
July 10

She has a voice that can make the most hardened criminal cower. When she sings, everyone pays attention. That’s power. She was definitely the highlight for me at this year’s Winnipeg Folk Festival, and I felt blessed to hear her sing her songs in person. I think if everyone on this planet listened to her, we would truly achieve world peace.

Metallica
MTS Centre
October 12

The last time I saw these dudes was at Lollapalooza in 1996. That’s right when they decided to be a trendy “rock” band. It was still a good show, but disappointing because of the path they tried to blaze to stay relevant at the time. I heard their new album last year and was thoroughly impressed, and decided to check out this show. It was a nice reminder of why they are living metal legends.

Mastodon
Garrick Theatre
April 28

Every time Mastodon puts out a new album, it’s really exciting because you know they’re gonna do something totally innovative. Their new one is no exception, although it was hard to digest at first. So they decided to play the whole thing through live on their tour. That’s a totally lame Rush kinda thing to do, but after I saw it I appreciated it way more. And to send the hardcore fans home with a smile, they closed with “March of the Fire Ants”.

Digging Roots
Martial Caron Theatre
November 7
Actually the best musical performance I experienced this year was seeing these guys play “Cut My Hair” the night before at the Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards. It brought tears to my eyes and made my whole body shiver. But seeing their own whole set is always a really special thing, and they showcased that unrivaled talent at this show to close off the inaugural Aboriginal Music Week. Raven and ShoShona have an unwavering romantic dedication to their music that everyone needs to see live.

AC/DC
CanadInns Stadium
August 22
It was a stereotypical rock show but it was a perfect summer moment. A totally sold out football stadium on a Saturday night with people who just wanted to rock out and have a good time. They played all the classics to appease the 42,000-strong crowd, but the way they did it solidified why they are locked in to the canon of rock n’ roll. Seeing the sun set on the Prairies while the opening riff to “Hell’s Bells” rang across was a truly unforgettable moment.

Elvis Costello
Winnipeg Folk Festival
July 8

He was rightfully the biggest draw to this year’s Folk Fest and he proved why. For someone like me who only knows his hits, it was a nice reminder why he is such a legendary powerhouse. But seeing his command of his music and the crowd moved me to look deeper into the remarkable things he’s done throughout his career.

The Lytics
Royal Albert Arms
September 12
You don’t often see hip-hop at a punk rock staple like the Albert, but these dudes definitely threw it down with their set here. Really uplifting and tight rhymes that totally catered to a younger crowd of very enthusiastic people. They sort of remind me of what A Tribe Called Quest would have been like when they started out 20 years ago.

Wab Kinew
Pyarmid Cabaret
January 24
Hip-hop is always better with a full live backing band, and Wab assembled a killer crew to debut his new album Live by the Drum. It’s an eclectic and powerful collection of songs from one of the most talented young Anishinaabs in the country, so it was great to see it translated so well live.

Priestess
Pyramid Cabaret
November 25
Getting to this point has probably been a tough road for these dudes – having a much-anticipated follow-up album dropped and picked up a few times by record labels. They play the best rock n’ roll guitar riffs out there today, and as a guitar player it’s a real treat to see how they play them live. Priestess embodies the true energy and spirit that rock music should really be.

Next week…my favourite albums of the year. Stay tuned!

To lots of music fans it sounds pretty bold and even naive to suggest that any song is “perfect”. Especially from someone who’s not a professional musician. But the criteria for the perfect song is pretty simple: after countless listens, it still grabs you from the start and captivates you right through to the end. You never get sick of it, because it gives you goosebumps even after the thousandth listen. It makes you stare at the stereo. It keeps you in your driveway for minutes after you’ve parked. It stops you dead in your tracks if you’re walking. You play it for every single music fan you meet along the way, trying to sell them on its epic perfection.

Lots of songs from all kinds of genres can do this. There’s no single perfect tune. I could list dozens from the humble music collection I’ve assembled over the years. Perfectly orchestrated tracks of rhythm, lyrics, and melody. There are certain elements – like a line or a solo – that help propel these songs above everything else you’ve ever heard. But it’s the package as a whole that makes the perfect song transcend body and spirit. For me, one of those songs is Ween‘s “Buenos Tardes Amigo”.

It’s track 13 on the band’s 1994 breakthrough album Chocolate and Cheese. From New Hope, Pennsylvania, Ween has an eclectic catalogue of albums with songs that range from rock to country to synth-pop. Many of their song titles and lyrics lean on the bizarre, and they’ve been long considered a “joke” band by many critics. But their musical talent and dedication have built them a strong fan base that keeps growing and obscures those premature “novelty” labels. And it’s a song like “Buenos Tardes Amigo” that proves it.

The song is seven minutes and seven seconds of an epic narrative about jealousy, vengeance, and murder in a small Mexican village. It opens with a slow A minor chord on the acoustic guitar. It’s a stable, soothing constant in a song that spins modestly out of control. The rhythmic strumming is the foundation – like looking at the tortilla shell of a mystery quesadilla and not really knowing what’s in it. As the story progresses, a synthetic arrangement of strings in the background gets louder. The stripped-down and slow faux salsa rhythm gives way to actual drums, and it climaxes in one of the simplest yet most haunting guitar solos anyone has ever played. And then the last verse: a chilling twist of a denouement that will have you skipping back to the beginning of the song as soon as it’s done, just to hear the story again.

That narrative is really what carries “Buenos Tardes Amigo”. But every instrument attached to it intensifies the story exponentially. I’ll leave it up to you to Google the lyrics, but you should really listen to the song before reading them. Ween is my favourite band and I’ve had the fortune of seeing them a half dozen times over the past ten years, but I’ve only heard them play this live once – the first time I saw them at the Warehouse in Toronto in the summer of 1999. Maybe that elusiveness adds to the song’s intrigue for me. But this is the first song that got me hooked on the band, and if you ask any other Ween fan they’ll say the same thing.

It’s a timeless masterpiece I’ll never get sick of. I hang on every word, every note, and every beat. I get the shivers every time I hear that slow guitar solo heavily soaked in reverb. And for me, it’s a perfect song.

It was a mild and breezy summer evening. And as the sun set in the Prairie sky behind me, crunchy, decades-old power chords carried across the football stadium, thrilling young ears and triggering memories in the older ones. Forty-six thousand people from all walks of life – young and old alike – were absolutely elated that AC/DC was back in Winnipeg. A band with timeless radio and cult classics that span nearly four decades was here to do what it does best: rock out. It was my first time seeing the classic rock heroes, and I was just as stoked. But I soon realized I was stuck in the middle of an inter-generational passing of the rock torch. I sat beside a girl in her early teens and her dad, who were singing along to even the seediest of hits like “Whole Lotta Rosie”. And they weren’t the only family there. At this solitary show I finally saw the proof of what I’ve long believed: rock n’ roll is the most resilient genre of popular music; and as the old saying goes, it will never die.

There are standards in rock music like no other. The archetypes who wrote the blueprints will always appeal to 13-year-old kids just as much today as they did 30 years ago. It will always be cool to like Led Zeppelin. There’ll never be another rock guitar god quite like Hendrix. And few contemporary bands will write party anthems as well as AC/DC could. And that’s why people who grew up listening to them will keep bringing their kids to their shows. The rock show is both a cliche and a rite of passage in itself, but at the end of the day it’s still an unforgettable spectacle that people will continue to flock to. A massive, blow-up Rosie doll and cannons to close out the show? I’m glad I didn’t miss out on that.

Cliches aside, as resilient as rock music is, it falls short in versatility. Its glory days brought huge social upheaval with them, but it’s lacked that universal appeal for more than 20 years now. Rap was a new artistic vision created to speak to a growing demographic of young black people. It boomed, and has its own cliches today, but still it draws in new young fans in a way that rock can’t. Rock also can’t get people dancing like electronic music. And its emotion pales hugely in comparison to the heartache in any country twang.

But nothing compares to live rock music. The shows will always sell out. The classics will never get old. They’ll continue to infect the ears of the young for decades to come. I grew up listening to everything – from Metallica and Guns N’ Roses to Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys in the late 1980s. Those tastes branched rapidly like a tree on steroids in the early 1990s, as I started going to shows like Lollapalooza. I still try to keep as much of an open mind as I can to this day when it comes to new music. But I know when it comes time to take my kids to shows, it’ll be to the new generation of classics, like Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Queens of the Stone Age, and Tool. Bands that I can count on still being around when I’m in my 40s.