THE SPOONS OUTDOOR CONCERT - DUNDAS SQUARE, TORONTO:
















While I was in Toronto I discovered that The Spoons would be performing a one hour outdoor concert in downtown Toronto at the Dundas Square stage. It was part of Dairy Queen's 25th Anniversary of the Blizzard, a touring party that is stopping in 25 cities all across North America this summer. There was a lot of DQ hype before the gig and it looked liked many thousands of mini Oreo Blizzard's were handed out to eager Toronto residents. I got my Blizzard and made a donation to the The Children's Miracle Network.

The Spoons came on stage at 12 noon and played most of their hits in the hour long concert (set list below). The band fronted by Gord Deppe and Sandy Horne still sound great live and had the crowd dancing and enjoying themselves. The band is going to release an album of all new material this year (they recently saw their 1983 "Talkback" album get issued on cd for the first time). They played one of the new songs "Imperfekt" for only the second time live in concert and it sounded great. I had missed the band's recent 30th Anniversary concert in Toronto and was happy to be able to see them live outside on a nice sunny day. After the concert I noticed Gord and Sandy signing stuff for fans behind the stage so I went back and chatted with them and got my Talkback cd signed.




While at University I booked The Spoons and they played Convocation Hall in Sackville New Brunswick during the tour to promote their album "Bridges Over Borders". As a long time fan of the group it is great to see them still sounding great and working on releasing a new album.


















All photos copyright KulPop.



The Spoons - Dundas Square, Toronto, May 18th, 2010

SET LIST:

12:02 pm
Intro
Arias & Symphonies
Smiling In Winter
Romantic Traffic
Rodeo
Waterline
Bridges Over Borders
When Time Turns Around
Tell No Lies
Imperfekt (And Real) - new song
Old Emotions
One In Ten Words
Nova Heart
ended 1:00 pm
.

a-ha PERFORM FINAL CANADIAN DATE AT MASSEY HALL, TORONTO:
















I was lucky enough to catch a-ha in concert as part of their "Ending On A High Note" tour at Massey Hall in Toronto on May 10th, 2010. I have been a long time fan of the trio and decided I wanted to see them in concert and it was definitely worth the trip to Toronto to see them.

I arrived at the venue a bit early and found a crowd of fans around one of the stage doors and heard stories of how they had recently arrived at the venue and that Paul and Mags had stopped to sign a few things for people but that Morten said he would do that later. I was fun chatting with a few fans, one guy had waited for 14 hours at the Toronto airport only to miss them arriving in the city because he waited in the wrong terminal. I entered the famous Massey Hall and took my seat (fifth row centre isle) and waited for the concert to begin after the short set by opener Ray Materick.

Tchaikovsky's "Serenade in C major" started up as their intro music and the large video screen at the back of the stage ran various black and white cartoon drawing images of the band, then Paul, Mags and Morten entered to great applause. They started with the title track from their latest cd "Foot Of The Mountain" and basically played all their best songs in reverse chronological order (see full set-list below). Morten had an early false start on either The Bandstand or Analogue and cracked a smile with Magne once he realized his mistake. The band sounded great and was helped out with a drummer and keyboard player. Morten's voice was in top form which was nice as he has had some problems with it in earlier stages of the farewell tour (he managed the long sustained note in "Summer Moved On" with no problems). A couple of times Magne came out from behind his keyboard to encourage the crowd and even played some drums during one song (Morten also played electronic drums during "Bandtsand"). Mid set the guys got together in the center of the stage and performed "And You Tell Me" and "Early Morning" acoustically without the backing band. Ending with "Cry Wolf" the band left the stage and a nice video retrospective played on the screen, then the band returned to play out the final songs which were "The Sun Always Shines on TV" (during which a montage of old American movies and TV shows was projected on the video screen), "Hunting High And Low" and left the stage and came back to close the show with a great version of their best known hit "Take On Me". I managed to video tape the last song and you can watch it below.

After the concert I noticed a large crowd at the main stage door waiting to try and meet the guys. I walked around to the other side of the building where there was another smaller crowd and a couple of black vehicles waiting so I decided that this was probably the best place to stay and try and meet them. Paul came out first and I got his signature on my "Hunting High & Low" cd booklet. Magne followed and again I got the autograph I wanted. Lastly Morten came out and he said he would sign things first then take photos with fans (he must have spent at least 25 minutes with the fans). Got the final signature on the cd booklet and then thought I might as well get a pic with Morten also so I waited a bit longer and got a photo with him.







It was amazing to finally see the band live and meeting them briefly after the gig was a nice way to end the evening.




a-ha Massey Hall Toronto May 10th, 2010

SET LIST:

8:45 pm - Tchaikovsky's "Serenade in C major" intro

1. Foot Of The Mountain
2. The Bandstand
3. Analogue
4. Forever Not Yours
5. Minor Earth, Major Sky
6. Summer Moved On
7. Move To Memphis
8. The Blood That Moves The Body
9. Stay On These Roads
10. The Living Daylights
11. Scoundrel Days
12. The Swing Of Things
13. And You Tell Me (acoustic)
14. Early Morning (acoustic)
15. We're Looking For The Whales
16. Manhattan Skyline
17. I've Been Losing You
18. Cry Wolf
-- Video Retrospective 10:00 pm
------------
19. The Sun Always Shines On TV
20. Hunting High And Low
------------
21. Take On Me
ended 10:25
.

HOWARD JONES PLANS CONCERT TO PERFORM 'HUMAN'S LIB' AND 'DREAM INTO ACTION' ALBUMS IN THEIR ENTIRETY:




















In a recent radio interview in the U.K. Howard Jones mentioned he has plans to do a concert later this year where he will perform his two classic albums - Human's Lib and Dream Into Action in their entirety. He has never done this and it will be an opportunity for fans to hear many songs live that they may never have seen Howard perform before. There will likely be some surprises, maybe Jed Holie will hit the stage for some mime as he did in the early days (and at Howard's 20th Anniversary gig).

No date has been announced, if it is a one off gig I would imagine it will be in the U.K., most likely London at the the O2's indigO2 or Shepherd's Bush Empire.
** UPDATE ** It looks like the concert will be held on November 6th, 2010.

In other Howard Jones news Howard has been re-recording three of his classic hits in the same style as his latest studio album "Ordinary Heroes" for inclusion as bonus tracks on the Japanese release of the cd, the songs are: New Song, What Is Love and Everlasting Love. Also 'Straight Ahead' will be the new single from the album Ordinary Heroes, it will be released as a single in the UK on March 22nd 2010.