Gig: The Hidden Cameras

The Hidden Cameras (Gentleman Reg)

The Opera House. Saturday, December 5, 2009.

Back out to the unloved Opera House for this fabulous pairing of acts. As is happened, I had a fine time there this time out — it didn't feel uncomfortably crammed, the door staff were humane, etc. Y'never know what you're gonna get there, I guess. Ran into an acquaintance, J., inside. He'd seen The Hidden Cameras in L.A. before moving to T.O., but he was eager to see them on their home turf — where he was expecting something special and not "just" a gig.

The last night of the tour brought us opener Gentleman Reg in loose and lubricated form, starting things off slow and ballad-style before launching into the "Give Me The Chance to Fall" (from 2002's Make Me Pretty, one of his best tunes¹) and the rocking "You Can't Get It Back". All told, we had a different setlist and a larger cast of characters than his previous appearances this year. With no second guitarist and a pair of borrowed bass players from The Hidden Cameras (Dave Meslin played bass for the first few songs, and then Jon Hynes completed the set), the band was down to a core of Reg plus key co-conspirators Kelly McMichael (keybs) and Dana Snell (drums). But given the pool of Hidden Cameras members available to fill out the sound, this might have been the biggest sounding set from Reg this year. In a burst of end-of-tour/home crowd blowing off steam, there was a loose, party vibe to the whole set, with Reg, apparently getting into the sauce:

Reg: I didn't drink for over three months, and then in Vancouver — in Vancouver I started to drink again... I think I'm more fun when I drink.

Dana: Reg... what else do you do when you drink?

Reg: [smiles, affects innocent look] Oh, nothing. [beat] I just have more fun.²

Meanwhile, the band also essayed a "brand new song" ("it's true, it's true / what they said is true") with classic Brill Building changes and charming backing vox, Joel Gibb and Maggie MacDonald coming out to add some harmonies. Taking further advantage of the troops of the mild-mannered army, "How We Exit" featured a punchy trumpet solo from Shaun Brodie. In a nice bit of catalogue-digging, Katie Sketch came out to add vox to "Untouchable" (from 2004's Darby & Joan), with Reg telling us at the end, "I don't know if it's because I'm drunk or what, but that made me very emotional!" — perhaps appropriately, that was followed up with "To Some it Comes Easy", with its "in time / I'm gonna drink myself into a nursery rhyme" refrain. And then two big dance-frenzy numbers to finishing things out, with Laura Barrett adding extra keyb to a stellar take of "We're in a Thunderstorm" before the set was capped off with "The Boyfriend Song", the back of the stage filling up with dancers as if a sock hop had broken out. With a strongly partisan group of fans on hand — at least up front — this didn't feel like your typical grin-and-bear-it opening set, although it was a superb bit of warming up for the main event.

Listen to a track from this set here.

I'd seen the Cameras at the other end of their tour, at the album release show at Goodhandy's, and it was instructive to contrast the setup and the vibes. Although even that show had the feel of an event, it was ultimately like comparing a high school musical to a Broadway show — bigger and amped up in every dimension. Just like at the Goodhandy's show, the band took the stage to the slow build of "Ratify the New", a couple minutes of mounting drone as the band, in their hooded cowls, took their places before beginning the song proper. But any theories that they might stick as close to the new album as they did at the release party were put to rest as they launched into a couple from 2006's Awoo, including "Follow These Eyes" (in an arrangement with muscular "Billie Jean" drums and bumblebee trumpet) and the makes-sense-when-you-see-it-live "Heji". "Bboy" ramped up the spectacle even further, with banners being waved around and the choir (more than a dozen deep, arranged in two wings behind the band) taking the stage in their ghost-y costumes. And, not for the last time, we were invited to participate: "Why don't you join in with the choir? It's just a little breathing".

Gibb brought back a little bit of Berlin with him, with the ending of "Hump From Bending" melding into a rollicking cover of a German rocker "Macht Kaputt Was Euch Kaputt Macht"³ Gentleman Reg came out with some dance moves in the "see no evil, hear no evil vein" the band exhorted everyone to dance along to "Breathe on It"⁴, reaching all the way back to The Smell of Our Own. "This is just like a revival meeting!" the woman beside me shouted joyfully to her friend.

After "Fear is On", the perienially civic-mined Dave Meslin managed to sneak in a pitch for Beautiful City and the fight for the since-passed billboard tax. ⁵ A bit of a pause for breath with some of the less frenetic material from Origin:Orphan, including "Kingdom Come", "Walk On" and "Colour of a Man". And to those who have harrumphed that this is a new direction for the band, sandwiched in the middle of those was "A Miracle", which was recorded c. 2001, and which complemented them well. Admittedly not all of the new songs are quite up to that standard — I find "Walk On" a but dull — but I think when we look back at this in time, it'll seem like a natural part of the whole.

In a delightfully unexpected turn, the band played "Fear of Zine Failure", which I'm not sure I've ever heard them do live — not for a long time, anyways. And with Maggie MacDonald leading the crowd with some dance moves, it signified that the pause for breath in the middle was done and the party was resuming. Gibb contributed to this by gathering up the length of his microphone cord in loops around his arm and launching himself into the audience, running towards the soundbooth like he was trying to escape the building while singing "Doot Doot Plot". The final four songs of the main set were an O:O mini suite, with the dancey "Underage" leading to a frenetic run through "The Little Bit" before closing things out on the lovely meditative "Silence Can Be a Headline", and suddenly it was like the last slow-dance at the gay prom I never had.

Returning for the encore, the band led off with a cover of Rihanna's "Umbrella", which was popular from a crowd singalong point of view, but didn't really work for my perspective. Things were on a much more solid footing with the band revisiting a few classics, like "Smells Like Happiness" and "Music Is My Boyfriend", all holy hell breaking out on the last one, with members of the audience being pulled up to dance on a crowded stage, and some of the band taking to the floor. It sounded a bit ragged, but it was most assuredly full of the spirit. Although that was probably meant as a ne plus ultra spectacle, the band was called out for one more, to a pretty worked-over stage, to end with the always-triumphal "Ban Marriage".

In the final analysis, I left remembering why The Hidden Cameras are so good. In the treadmill of digging the next thing and the next thing, we sometimes have a propensity to undervalue the bands we already know and love. And while it seems ludicrous to think of the Cameras as an underdog, it seems like most of the local reaction to the new album was a middling, take-'em-for-granted shrug. So a show like this serves as a powerful corrective and a chance to remember how bloody good they are. And in the larger picture, to remember what a joyfully ideal vision of our society they dare to reflect. J. confirmed that this was indeed the sort of spectacle that he'd been hoping for, and I left reflecting on the fact that it's artists like Hidden Cameras that are our city's ambassadors to the world. At a time when out political classes seem eager to increasingly debase themselves on the world's grand stage to score the crassest tactical victories, at least we have an option that we can point to and say, "no, this is what represents me." When our other institutions fail us, The Hidden Cameras make us feel unashamedly like citizens of a more perfectible nation.⁶

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ So consider that one request filled.

² Snell was a worthy comic foil for Reg throughout the night. Later on, in introducing the band, Reg played the diva card to make sure he got the last and loudest applause, and Snell brought him back down to earth, commenting, "Real life begins tomorrow Reg — who's going to cheer for you?"

³ And it took some digging to figure that one out, I tell you what. Check out the original here — it's pretty fabulous.

⁴ "Not bad for Toronto!" was the verdict from the stage.

⁵ Taking up his thought again later on in the show, Mez started singling out people at the front of the crowd by name, telling them to call the mayor — and that if the tax didn't get passed, it would be their fault.

⁶ Even if they travel under their own flag, they still belong to us, dammit.