Of concerts, setlists and Infernal Devices

I can't recall the circumstances that prompted me -- likely a favourite jam improbably kicked out by the Infernal Device's dodgy randomizer -- but when I consulted the webz to see how Eddie Spaghetti was faring I was informed the Supersuckers were due to perform in Toronto in two nights' time. If the cancer didn't kill him, this tour just might.

Hoisting the 'horns', even as he plays.

The evening's soporific put me in a nostalgic mood, and for a moment I considered booking the ticket. I consulted the calendar. My commitments made attending the concert formidably difficult, but certainly not impossible.

I begged out, however. Making the calls to reschedule, then committing myself to two-plus hours of driving for a Tuesday night concert in a venue almost as difficult for an out-of-towner to get to as this one -- if you throw in the fact that I no longer imbibe at these affairs, the likelihood of me feeling pissed with myself as I negotiated physical discomfort on the venue floor was very high indeed. I did the next best thing -- bought a T-shirt on-line and loaded the setlist onto my Infernal Device.

setlist.fm is quite the gift to music nerds. I've used it to fill in the blanks on shows I've seen and songs I'm not familiar with. And now, more often than not, I use it to put together these sorts of playlists of favourite performers I won't be seeing. Sometimes an act will throw in a song I've always found inexplicable -- the appeal of which becomes clearer during the performance. The concert environment can't be squeezed through a headset while mopping floors, of course, but often the order of play is enough to transmit glimmers of the magic afoot in those elsewhere moments.

Listening to the setlist of the current Supersuckers tour, I realized the night was almost certainly a thrill for those in attendance -- to my ears it was the ideal set. Have I any regrets? Mm . . .