broken cars and the weakerthans have a new bass player

last friday was a day i'd been looking forward to for over a month. an outdoor summer concert in a nearby town, with 2 of my favourite bands, the lowest of the low and the weakerthans playing.

so we got there around 430pm, and my car died RIGHT when we pulled into the parking lot. we actually had to push it into its parking spot. after thinking about what to do, we finally decided to wait until after the show to get a tow truck. we rushed over to 'the island', and caught (in progress) a workshop with ron hawkins and steve stanley from the low, and j k samson and steve carroll from the weakerthans. they took turns playing songs and telling little stories. the low guys played a couple of new-ish songs. jks played 'a new name for everything', and 'Anchorless'. also at this workshop was ford pier - a guy i'd seen before, as guitarist with martin tielli's band. he sang some great songs too.

then we headed over to the main stage to see the first band, the fembots. they're a decent band, and they put on a good show for a mostly-disinterested crowd. The low cam out after 8pm. i didn't write down the set list, but their songs included:
- dogs of february, just about "the only" blues, and then the riot, for the hand of magdelena, everywhere and nowhere, the sharpest pain, last lost generation, your birthday party, turpentine, 3 am taxi ride, save me alice neel, last recidivist, winter sleepers.
they played for about an hour and a quarter. after a short break, the main band, the weakerthans, came out. the crowd was really into it (apparently they were there to see this band!). funny, about 4 years ago, i saw the weakerthans open for the low. this time, it's the other way around...

i love this band, they played an awesome set list. oh, and they have a new bass player. a guy named greg smith, whom i've seen as the bassist for tielli's band. i don't know what happened to john p....

their set list included:
- diagnosis, aside (the sound went dead TWICE during this song, so they had to resume the song before finally giving up), watermark, pampheteer, this is a fire door never leave open, left and leaving, manifest, the reasons, reconstruction site, psalm for the elks lodge last call, plea from a cat named virtute, our retired explorer, one great city, benediction. their second encore was a cover of a song by the replacements, a song called 'swingin party' from their fantastic album called 'tim'.

so yeah, it was a great show, despite the car problems, i still found myself humming the weakerthans on the way home. the tow truck came at 1230, towed the car to my mechanics. we got a taxi to take us home. long night, but well worth it...

the car? well, i'll find out today if it's worth repairing. it is, after all, a 1989...