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This may surprise some of you who no doubt think of me as extremely cool, but there is no band I have seen live more than Barenaked Ladies.
I have seen them in multiple local venues, from the University of Winnipeg’s then-Athletic Centre to the arena. I have seen them in Toronto, Regina, Banff, Minneapolis, Chicago and Grand Forks, N.D.
Although I love them unreservedly, this frequency is not entirely the result of pure fandom; my friends and I struck up an acquaintance with the pop quintet during their first Canadian tour that has lasted for more than 30 years.
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In a way, I owe them my career. The first published article I ever wrote was a Barenaked Ladies interview in Stylus magazine circa 1991. The first concert review I ever did was of the band’s Walker Theatre show in 1990-something, shortly after the Exchange District landmark was restored. It ran in the now-defunct Perimeter magazine; the editor accidentally left my byline off the copy, so it appeared that photographer James O’Connor had written it. (I was at a crowded house party weeks later when I overheard him explaining to someone that he had “nothing to do with that embarrassing piece of s—,” an assessment that stung, largely because it was fairly accurate.)
I don’t think I would ever have had the guts to interview musicians I wasn’t already friendly with; BNL was my gateway to a career that I didn’t really know was a career.
Barenaked Ladies. (Matt Barnes photo)
Seeing them these days, as I will on Monday at the Burt as part of their Hometown Holiday tour (limited tix available at Ticketmaster), is like a conduit to the past. Those same university friends and I will be in the audience; although they will always be 20 years old to me, listening to songs that made up part of the soundtrack of our youth, in the glow of the stage lights, will take us all back to 1991 — a time of road trips and rock bands, late nights and Labatt 50. And that’s pretty cool.
What are bands that will always hold a place in your heart and why?
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