Bright Eyes @ History

. : : April 10th, 2025 : : .

I've seen Bright Eyes a couple of times in the (somehow) distant past, some eighteen years ago, and my memory of them is faint and fuzzy at best.

As someone who fell in love with Lifted...or the Story is in the Soil album, juuuuuuust before the band blew up big with their I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning album, I remember being really excited to see them live and leaving really disappointed.

The band was known for wild, energetic, and chaotic performances that teetered on the edge of being an incoherent mess, but which side it leaned towards on any given night seemed to depend on front man Conor Oberst's sobriety (or rather, the lack thereof).

The two shows I saw in Toronto I remember as being fine, if perfunctory, and really lacking in emotion -- an odd thing to say about a band that is synonymous with the emo genre.

Known for set lists that span the entire musical catalogue of one of the more prolific songwriters of our generation -- no b-side, limited release, split single, or rare EP song was ever off the table -- I still lucked out with actually pretty decent set lists. But somehow, I never connected with the live performance in the way I connected with the recordings.

After the better part of two decades, curiosity (and a great touring support act!) led me to give them a third chance, and ... well...

I left feeling like the performance was fine, if perfunctory, and somewhat lacking in emotion.

Cursive @ History

. : : April 10th, 2025 : : .

I seemed to almost will the Cursive - Bright Eyes double bill into existence.

Excited by the well-received new album by the band, Devourer, I was hopeful for another Canadian tour date (the band had a long border-crossing sabbatical from 2012 through 2022). One day, quite randomly, I also thought about how long it'd been since I'd seen Bright Eyes, and curiously peeked at Setlist.FM to see what recent shows have looked like. "Yeah, they might be cool to check out again when they tour here next," I thought to myself in a wave of early 2000's nostalgia.

When it was announced a week or so later that not only were they both hitting Toronto this spring but were on the same bill, I was immediately all-in.

Kathleen Edwards @ Flato Markham Theatre

. : : October 11th, 2024 : : .

Hi.

I guess it's been a minute, hasn't it?

The global pandemic, outrageously increasing costs in concert ticket prices, significantly more responsibility at work, and just a hectic life in general have all conspired to keep me away from this site for much, much longer than I ever intended to be away.

That's not to say I haven't been to / recorded any concerts in the interim; maybe it's worth noting, without getting into detail (I'll leave that for future entries), that things haven't gone exactly to plan with any of them. These difficulties were definitely a gigantic obstacle in getting my motivation reignited.

I wish I could say this one started off any differently.

CBC’s 12 Days of Christmas

. : : Various 2013-2014 : : .

I seem to have a lot of Christmas-themed or otherwise related recordings, which surprises me, because I can be somewhat of a holiday scrooge.

Frivolous spending, unabashed commercialism, repetitive Christmas music that starts earlier each year, social obligations... the list of my pet peeves about the holiday is about as long as my arm.

And yet, here I am with a digital hoard of Christmas music recordings. Go figure.

This one, hopefully the last for the year, is a compilation of songs the CBC recorded in 2013 and 2014, featuring established and little-known Canadian musicians performing their favourite Christmas songs for two "12 Days of Christmas" radio specials.

(Or, you know, songs that weren't picked by other artists before them)

For a limited time, some of these songs were available for download on CBC.ca -- I believe as MP3s -- but contained just the music itself. This recording, a presumably higher-quality FLAC, includes the band's talking about their selections and DJ chatter giving the occasional context, and can thus be considered "more complete" if "less official."

I combined the original tracks from both airings (removing duplicates and redundant dj chatter) for this compilation, featuring bands familiar to regular visitors to this blog, including Blue Rodeo, Royal Wood, Bahamas, Moist, Barenaked Ladies, and Chris Hadfield.

haterhigh December 24, 2021

Live Recordings

Colleen Brown @ St. Stephen in the Fields Church

. : : December 18th, 2020 : : .

This time last year, we thought we were nearing the end of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

As I write this, we are ankle-deep in a fourth wave propelled by the latest Omicron variant. But last year, we thought "if we can only get through Christmas, we'll be OK, right?"

People were desperately trying to return to something resembling normalcy, and musicians fulling embracing live streaming to supplement a year's lost touring income meant that we had live music again. Rather than in smokey bars and tall-ceiling, boomy halls, we were listening to it from the comfort of our lazy boys with a glass of wine or a mug of coffee in our hands.

$15,000 speaker stacks were replaced by $15 laptop or tablet speakers, but we didn't care: we had our favourite music and the very best sight lines.

There was an overwhelming selection of live streams to join -- some paid, some free, some behind paywalls, others in front of donation links. I'm not sure about you, but it wasn't long before I was overwhelmed by a glutton of options and ended up missing much more of it than I would've liked.

It'd been a minute since I've seen Colleen Brown live, and her latest album Isolation Songs seemed like the perfect way to wind down (ha!) the pandemic. Originally written as a series of weekly song-writing challenges during the first months of the lock down, the material blossomed into a 10-song album of reflection, introspection, and a dash of doom.

I couldn't miss a chance to see her perform some of these songs with her then-roommate, Sarah Hiltz.

As Zoom musician amateurs, this recording features all the hallmarks of pandemic live-from-home idiosyncrasies, so have your BINGO card ready: you'll hear, "Hello? Can you hear me?," "I've never done this before," "I don't know what I'm doing," "It's weird having silence between songs," common drop-outs, bursts of static, and more.

These imperfections are probably the main motivator that kept this recording in the blog post queue for so long, but listening back, it's still very listenable. More so, it's charming: hearing Colleen and Sarah banter and giggle between songs as they "fly by the seat of [their] pants" invokes a feeling of hanging out at their apartment while they jam.

haterhigh December 17, 2021

Live Recordings

Gregory Alan Isakov @ Lee’s Palace

. : : November 10th, 2011 : : .

It seems about ten years ago is when I started to get overwhelmed with sorting, editing, and posting live concert recordings, and a lot of them didn't make it online to the blog.

You may have noticed that I'm been picking away at the backlog with weekly updates for about 7-consecutive months now(!!), and luckily we're past the point of scratching the surface (but still plenty to go!).

This particular recording slipped away from me after being taped ten years ago this week. I was recently reminded of it when I was discussing music with a client at work. I asked who his current favourite artist is, and he replied, "Oh, you've definitely never heard of him."

"Try me," I challenged.

"No one around here knows who he is: Gregory Alan Isakov," He said with resignation at my presumed befuddlement.

"Oh, yeah! I saw Gregory perform like, ten years or so ago!"

I couldn't remember exactly who I saw him open for or where the venue was, but how do you forget a name like that?

haterhigh November 12, 2021

Live Recordings

Hatfield-Robertson @ International Space Station

. : : February 8th, 2013 : : .

Chris Hadfield is best known as a Canadian astronaut, but he's also an acclaimed musician and author, and has built strong friendships with some of Canada's finest artists.

This blog entry goes back to the beginning of his explosive career, where he collaborated with Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson and the gleek club from my high school alma mater, Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts on a live performance.

Which, wouldn't be so unusual if Hadfield wasn't performing his contribution from the International Space Station in, you know, SPACE.

haterhigh November 5, 2021

Live Recordings

Blue Rodeo @ Glenn Gould Studios

. : : October 29th, 2012 : : .

Blue Rodeo celebrates their 34th anniversary as one of Canada's most-beloved band this month, so now seems as good a time as any to look back at this recording of the band's celebratory performance of their 25th anniversary, performed 9 years ago on this very day.

Performed at the beautiful Glenn Gould Studio, I can only look back and wish I had been able to attend this one.

Almost reading like a who's-who of Alt-Country and Roots-Rock in Canada, there were performances by Whitehorse, Ron Sexsmith, Justin Rutledge, Oh Susanna, Cuff the Duke, Skydiggers, Great Big Sea, the Sadies, and more.

haterhigh October 29, 2021

Live Recordings

Andrew James O’Brien @ Rivoli

. : : November 8th, 2012 : : .

Newfoundland is a province drenched in a deep-rooted tradition of folk music.

So (although I've never been) when I think of Newfoundland, I imagine great big ocean waves crashing on rocky beaches, fishing boats out in the rain, gulls circling overhead in grey skies, and pubs filled with patrons talking over proudly strummed acoustic guitars.

Guitars strummed to songs performed like those of Andrew James O'Brien, who I saw open for Amelia Curran back in 2012. He was promoting his debut album, Through My Days, and an initial Google search to see what he's been up since then had me a bit disappointed.

haterhigh October 22, 2021

Live Recordings

Kathleen Edwards @ The Back Room

. : : September 10th, 2021 : : .

Three weeks ago, I posted a high quality, professional recording rip of a condensed Kathleen Edwards set from her autumn 2021 tour.

But by the time I put that one online, I was already holding onto a fantastic audience recording of a full set performed at The Back Room in Milwaukee, recorded by a fellow fanatic and blog-reader who graciously donated his tape to Hater-High!

I wanted to give the tape some breathing space before posting it -- both to encourage fans to actually get out and see the shows on this tour, and also to have time to give it a quick EQ once-over to bring up the vocals and guitars a bit in the mix.

But Kathleen's back at home, and fans across the world (including Canada *cough*) still haven't had a chance to see her triumphant return to music. This might not quite be the next best thing, but it's definitely next-best-thing-adjacent.

haterhigh October 15, 2021