The Dears – Ottawa Tulip Festival – May 22, 2006

So this was an awesome show, again one of my favourites all year. I have so much I want to say about this show because there are so many elements that struck my attention.

For one, the band looked great. Murray was wearing a smart white suit with signature black neck tie. Bassist Martin Pelland is still soo, soo hot; wearing an awesomely tailor’s suit jacket and jeans, he’s hot property. Everyone else in the band looked good, but I wasn’t paying super close attention to them. Side note on romance in the band, Pelland and keyboardist (I don’t know her name) seem to be involved, they were smooching.

The stage arrangement was also altered from their own get up. The two keyboardist used to play side by side on the right, but this time, the keyboardist Pelland is involved with was on the opposite side of the stage (probably to be closer to him).

The performance was pretty good. They played a lot of new songs, which seems appropriate for their upcoming CD. The set list’s first 5 songs were new (the 3^rd and 5^th were hot in my opinion). The third song had a hot bass line also, if I remember correctly.

This was followed by a number of songs from their own album, which was awesomely orgasmic to hear. The opening riff for “lost in the plot” turns me on every time I see them live; I have it playing now, it’s one of my favourite songs of all time.

This was the 6^th time I have seen The Dears in concert, I can’t say it was as awesome of an experience as the 2^nd, and best time I saw them, at the Hard Rock back 3 years ago, but it was still enjoyable. I had a play at the gates, so I had a great view. Unfortunately the crowd did not have as many years under their belt as I, in terms of being Dears’ fanatics. An example of the conversation beside me: “The Dears? Have you heard much of their stuff’ ‘nah, not really, have you?’ ‘I haven’t, I hope they’re good”. Puh-lease, I was patient though, I knew The Dears would rock their world, and sure enough the same people half way through the show were saying: “Wow, this is really good!”; point made. Also because there weren’t Dears’ fanatics in the crowd there wasn’t much crowd participation, not many people yelled obnoxious comments during and between songs. I’ll always remember when some goof yelled out “good this time” during Murray’s pause during “The Second Part” haha! I really wanted to yell “play warm and sunny days because we need some warm and sunny days” but I didn’t have the balls to go through with it, mostly because I went to the show by myself, and didn’t want to feel like a retard.

I ended up singing along with a few of the songs, which was cool. It was a friggin’ cold night for the last week of May, fuckin’ late spring sucks ass; I wanna wear the summer dress I bought 3 weeks back, bastard.

Who knows when the next chance I will have to see The Dears, I have to take every opportunity I can. I hope I like the new album, it seems to be a move away from their “Smiths” sounds that I’ve grown so much attached too, but the songs are pretty rockin, nevertheless.