Well, better late than never. The enduring Rosanne Cash graced the stage of The Royal Conservatory’s Koerner Hall in downtown Toronto last Saturday night along with her incredible band (including husband Steve Leventhal), and it proved to be a terrific show. Originally this concert was scheduled for Sunday, April 11, 2021 but, like so many things the last couple of years, was postponed due to COVID-19.
The crowd was overjoyed to see her, and Rosanne herself was truly thrilled to be there, and said so. While I’m not a Rosanne Cash fan per se (Vince instigated the ticket purchasing and I came along for the ride), I do appreciate good music of any genre – and what a great venue for the concert: the beautiful and acoustically-superb Koerner Hall!:
Koerner Hall
I was very curious, especially, to see exactly how something like a concert can be attended during these pandemic times. Masks and second vaccinations were required for entry, and here’s what the crowd looked like:
Masked and ready for Rosanne
I didn’t get any shots of the actual concert as photography during the concert was prohibited; as a good Canadian I acquiesced and obeyed the rules. I did, however, grab a quick shot of the stage before the evening got under way:
The stage, pre-concert
Here’s what the concert setlist looked like:
A Feather’s Not a Bird The Sunken Lands Etta’s Tune The Only Thing Worth Fighting For Tryin’ to Get Home (Reverend Gary Davis cover) Crossing to Jerusalem Particle and Wave She Remembers Everything Long Black Veil (Lefty Frizzell cover) Ode to Billie Joe (Bobbie Gentry cover) The World Unseen When the Master Calls the Roll Blue Moon With Heartache The Killing Fields Money Road Tennessee Flat Top Box (Johnny Cash cover) Encore: Seven Year Ache
All in all, a great concert by a beautiful, talented and charming performer. Thank you so much, Rosanne, for braving COVID and travelling from the U.S. to deliver this perfect concert to us. Apparently this was the only Canadian date on her tour and we were honoured to have her.
You’ve probably read the title of this post and thought: “Whhaaaaa??”. It’s an unlikely combo at first glance: the film Star Wars: A New Hope coupled with the TSO (Toronto Symphony Orchestra). Not so weird actually.
What a brilliant idea. Over the span of the next couple of years the Toronto Symphony Orchestra is performing the John Williams-composed Star Wars soundtracks live while the movies are projected larger than life in the background. These concerts take place in the still-somewhat-elegant Roy Thomson Hall.
Starting with the 1997 re-release versions of the “original three” (as I like to call them), the first concert up is Star Wars: A New Hope; this is the production we went to last night. It was fantastic to hear that amazing John Williams soundtrack *really* brought to life by the TSO.
You don’t realize how much music, both prominent and incidental, there actually is in a Star Wars film; this concert really brought the music to the forefront. The TSO were absolutely superb and every musical detail was faithful to the original motion picture soundtrack (except the “Cantina” scene in the Mos Eisley bar – the filmed version was played here). Sarah Hicks did a brilliant job conducting the orchestra, who played to an absolutely packed and very enthusiastic house. No less than three encores were called after the performance/film completed.
Here’s a few shots from last night’s performance. These were taken before the performance began and during the 15-minute intermission at the movie’s halfway point:
The audience during Intermission
Performance Schedule
Star Wars: A New Hope played on the nights of January 23, 24, 25, 26, 2019. The rest of the Star Wars Film Concert Series is scheduled as follows:
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back – March 20, 21, 22, 23, 2019 Star Wars: Return of the Jedi – October 2, 3, 4, 5, 2019 Star Wars: The Force Awakens – May 6, 7, 8, 9, 2020
I’m sure more are to follow as time goes by, and I can hardly wait.
There were two memorable events in Toronto during the summer of 2003: one was the massive power blackout covering most of northeast North America and the other was SARStock.
Held on July 30, 2003 at Downsview Park (previously a former military air base in the north end of the city), the event was a gigantic, marathon rock concert to benefit Toronto’s economy and help it recover from the SARS epidemic. The concert was organized in about a month upon the suggestion of concert headliners The Rolling Stones. The Stones, by the way, love Toronto – they have played in our city many times and, utilizing small clubs like the Phoenix or the Palais Royale, they frequently practice and perform here prior to setting off on their major tours. Toronto has some not-so-fond memories, though, for Keith Richards; this is where he got busted, tried and sentenced for heroin possession way back in early 1977.
This massive concert in Downsview Park went by many names – Toronto Rocks, Stars 4 SARS, Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto, SARSfest, SARS-a-palooza, the SARS concert, The Rolling Stones SARS Benefit Concert – but I affectionately call it SARSstock as it seems the most apropos. The Rolling Stones donated 50 percent of the proceeds (an estimated $1.3 million) from their merchandise sales to two relief funds set up for the event, and $1 per ticket was also donated towards the funds. The net proceeds of official merchandise was also donated towards the relief funds.
Official crowd estimates put the number at 500,000 people attending the concert, but it felt (and looked) like far, far more than that. The unofficial crowd estimate was over a million people so I don’t know who to believe. Regardless, SARStock made the record books as the largest outdoor ticketed event in Canadian history, and one of the largest in North American history.
It was an all-Canadian event: vendors sold Alberta beef in support of the Canadian beef industry, which had recently suffered because of a case of mad cow disease. In gentle, polite, mannerly, well-behaved Canadian style, there were no major security incidents that day, which was amazing given the crowd size.
Co-hosted by Canada’s own Dan Ackroyd and Mike Bullard the band lineup was a mish-mash of Canadian (English & French), American and English talent, mostly retro acts but good retro acts if you know what I mean. The day’s lineup was:
The Have Love Will Travel Revue
Sam Roberts
Kathleen Edwards
La Chicane
The Tea Party
Blue Rodeo
Sass Jordan
The Flaming Lips
The Isley Brothers
Justin Timberlake
The Guess Who
Rush
AC/DC
The Rolling Stones
And all of this for only $21.50.
Each band (full concert setlist below) performed for about 15 to 20 minutes but stage/equipment teardown and setup for each act seemed to take forever. There was a lot of people scenery between acts, however, to keep anyone occupied. The Stones and AC/DC sets each took over 90 minutes, so you could certainly tell who the headliners of this gig were.
This was one of the best and most fun days of my life. My memories of that day are:
THE CROWD
In my entire life, I’ve never been in a crowd this large – that in itself was an experience. You can imagine the chaos of over a half-million people sprawled pell-mell on the grass with no organization whatsoever. If you had to leave your group for whatever reason, the only point of reference for your return were the numbered speaker stacks in the audience. If you failed to notice the number on your speaker stack there was little chance you’d ever find your group again. I remember it taking me over an hour just to get to the water and toilets – I missed Justin Timberlake’s set entirely (oh noooooo!) while I was gone, so I failed to witness firsthand the legendary water bottle-throwing incident (more on that, below).
THE WEATHER
It was one of those rare summer days in Toronto where, instead of haze and humidity, the sky was absolutely clear and deep blue, not a cloud in sight, and it was HOT, very hot!
THE VIBE
Party. Absolute, sheer party. Period.
MY FRIENDS
I spent this day with my good friends Janice, Richard and his son Pete. What a great time we had. I’ll never forget Janice smuggling in her bottle of vodka. The security line we were in at the entrance gates was conducting frisk-searches, so Janice hopped over one line and – as luck would have it – they bypassed her for a frisk search. Happy days.
Here we are as we stepped out of Downsview subway station to make our way to the concert grounds:
Some of the Molson crew were taking Polaroid pictures of people arriving from the subway and we happened to get our mugs shot as we made our way to the concert grounds.
JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE
Justin Timberlake was booed by the crowd, who were anticipating the harder-rocking second half of the concert. Throughout his performance he had to dodge water bottles, toilet paper, muffins, and other items thrown by the audience. This was definitely a hard rock/classic rock crowd and Timberlake was the odd man out with his lightweight pop styling. He later returned to duet with Mick Jagger on Miss You; at that time the crowd was scolded by a visibly pissed off Keith Richards for their earlier treatment of Timberlake.
THE GUESS WHO
Randy Bachman, Garry Peterson, Burton Cummings
So awesome to see the original lineup back, if even for a precious few numbers. To me, the Guess Who is synonymous with growing up in the early 70s on the Canadian prairies – their music was everywhere and was entrenched in our culture. My older brother was a big influence in my memories and impressions of the Guess Who; he had a few of their earlier records and played them often around the house (strains of Albert Flasher, No Time and New Mother Nature drift through my mind when I think of those days).
THE FLAMING LIPS
The Flaming Lips invited artists from backstage to dance on stage with them dressed in fuzzy animal costumes. I, for one, was never a Flaming Lips fan… I just don’t get them…
AC/DC
I am not an AC/DC fan by any stretch of the imagination (OK, OK, I owned a copy of Back In Black as a teenager… who didn’t?), but they put on a show like the city has never seen; they absolutely stole the entire concert. AC/DC played a balls-to-the-wall (as they used to say in the ’70s) 70-minute set. Most of the crowd were there expressly to see AC/DC and didn’t really care so much about the previous acts. AC/DC were onstage just before the headlining Rolling Stones, but the AC/DC set absolutely blew away the crowd, driving them into a frenzy. I’ll never forget Angus Young dropping his pants and mooning the audience with an enormous Canadian maple leaf emblazoned on his shiny boxer shorts.
When the Stones finally did take the stage it was anticlimactic, almost bordering on disappointing, compared to the live bolts of lightning that was AC/DC. It was truly an odd thing: a huge amount of people began to leave during the Stones set (sorry, I can never get this thing of leaving in the middle of a performance to beat the traffic home – such an annoying Toronto thing).
Here’s a YouTube that shows the intensity of AC/DC as they played for the massive audience that day:
CLOSING OF CONCERT & THE JOURNEY HOME
As you can imagine, it takes quite a while for a crowd of half a million or more people to disperse. People were slowly drifting away halfway through the Stones’ performance but Richard and I stayed until the very bitter end to see the last cannon fired, so to speak. I believe it was somewhere around 1:00AM when we made our way out in the departing wave of humanity (Janice and Pete had left earlier in the evening, long before this mass exodus). It was absolutely impossible to get back on the subway at nearby Downsview station, so we walked all the way across Sheppard Avenue West from Downsview Park to Yonge Street where we somehow were able to get on the Yonge line with tens of thousands of other people heading home.
I’ll never forget that walk Richard and I took across Sheppard Avenue with so many of the other concertgoers who also decided to walk to Yonge Street. It was a crowd tens of thousands strong, and there was such a crazy party vibe in the air – absolute jubilation, with everyone still on a high from the heat and music of the day. When we did finally reach Sheppard station on the Yonge line it was jammed beyond comprehension, so we waited in queue for about another hour until we could stuff ourselves on one of the trains (the TTC had arranged to run all night that night in order to get everybody home). We finally got out of the packed subway at Yonge and Bloor and made our way home across Bloor Street East. All told, it was about 3:00AM when I stumbled through my front door. Luckily Richard and I both had the next day off work, which was a Friday.
CONCERT SETLIST
Here then, for posterity’s sake, is the setlist for the entire day. I’ve tried to be as complete as possible but there may be one or two songs missing here and there. I compiled the setlist from my own DVD copy of the concert and several miscellaneous Internet sources, so there could be some inconsistency. For the most part, though, the day’s music ran as follows:
The Have Love Will Travel Revue (Dan Ackroyd, Jim Belushi & supporting band) Intro With Skybox Ballroom Pump
Sam Roberts Don’t Walk Away Eileen Brother Down Where Have All The Good People Gone?
Kathleen Edwards One More Song The Radio Won’t Like Mercury 6 O’clock News
La Chicane Viens Donc M’voir Le Yâb De St. Nitouche Le Fil
The Tea Party Temptation Sister Awake Heaven Coming Down
Blue Rodeo Trust Yourself Hasn’t Hit Me Yet Lost Together
Sass Jordan High Road Easy You Don’t Have To Remind Me Brand New Day Make You A Believer (with Jeff Healy)
The Flaming Lips Race For The Prize Do You Realize?
The Have Love Will Travel Revue I’m Gonna Dig Myself a Hole
The Isley Brothers Fight the Power I Want to Take You Higher It’s Your Thing Put Yourself In My Place Who’s That Lady Summer Breeze Shout
Justin Timberlake Señorita Cry Me a River
The Have Love Will Travel Revue Time Won’t Let Me
The Guess Who Hand Me Down World No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature Takin’ Care of Business (BTO cover) American Woman No Time
Rush Tom Sawyer Limelight Dreamline YYZ Freewill Closer to the Heart Paint It Black The Spirit Of Radio
AC/DC Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be Back in Black Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap Thunderstruck If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It) Hells Bells The Jack T.N.T. You Shook Me All Night Long Whole Lotta Rosie Let There Be Rock
Encore: Highway to Hell
Rolling Stones Start Me Up Brown Sugar You Got Me Rocking Tumbling Dice Don’t Stop Ruby Tuesday You Can’t Always Get What You Want It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It) Miss You (with Justin Timberlake) The Nearness of You (Keith Richards, lead vocals) Happy (Keith Richards, lead vocals) Sympathy for the Devil Rock Me Baby (with Malcolm & Angus Young from AC/DC) Honky Tonk Women (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
Encore: Jumpin’ Jack Flash
A DVD of the day’s concert was released later in 2003, although it has omitted quite a few of the original tracks. I assume this is to fit the concert on a 2-disc DVD release. That’s a pity, as I’d like to relive the concert as a whole, regardless of how many physical discs are required. The DVD is probably no longer produced and marketed, so it remains a keepsake item for me.
SARSTock Concert DVD
There has never been a crowd and concert like this in Toronto, before or since. It was truly a unique experience and I’m so very glad I was a part of it. I’ll never forget that hot, cloudless, wonderful day in Downsview Park.
Without a doubt, the best live concert I’ve ever attended in my entire life was David Bowie’s Serious Moonlight, here in Toronto on a hot, humid September night waaaaaay back in 1983 at the good old CNE Stadium, (remember that place?). Although I also went to his Glass Spider tour in 1987, it didn’t quite have the electrical spark that Serious Moonlight did. There was just something indescribable about that night, that performer, and the super-charged audience that sent Serious Moonlight over the edge and into Toronto concert history (folklore, even?).
For some reason or other, the memories of that concert came into my mind the other day and I thought – hey! – what a great post this would make for the blog. I won’t, though, attempt to write a review for the Serious Moonlight concert; rather, I’m going to simply reminisce about it. All these years later I still cannot put into words what that concert meant to me; the intensity of the crowd, concert and performer all fused together to create a magical night.
I went digging in my memorabilia and found the concert program, carefully and lovingly preserved, from that night lo these many years ago. As is my way, I had meticulously scotch-taped my original ticket to the inside front cover of the program for safekeeping. The critical details of the ticket read:
David Bowie – The Serious Moonlight Tour September 3, 1983, 8:30PM CNE Stadium General Admission (floors), $22.50
Wow! – “General Admission” seating! Who could ever forget that mad dash across the playing field to the front of the stage as soon as the gates would swing open. I believe “General Admission” seating has long been abolished in concert-going as, to be honest, it was kind of dangerous (it’s that old fear of being crushed to death in the rush of 10,000 rabid fans all trying to reach the front of the stage at the same time).
There were two Serious Moonlight shows in Toronto that year – Saturday, September 3rd and Sunday, September 4th – and they were both sold out with 60,000 fans in attendance each night. The opening act was Rough Trade, and I remember Carole Pope and Kevan Staples absolutely blowing the crowd away with their performance. I still remember how dynamic they were that night, with Carole Pope strategically grabbing and working her crotch during that key lyrical moment in Highschool Confidential (if you’re Canadian and were even slightly plugged in to music during the late 70s/early 80s, you know exactly what I’m talking about here).
When I went searching on the Internet for a little more info on the Serious Moonlight concert tour in Toronto, I was shocked at how much these two shows have been discussed and documented over the years by other Torontonians. Several bloggers I found in my search have documented extremely in-depth reviews and impressions of those two nights. Apparently the show on the following night (September 4, 1983) had a surprise appearance and performance by Mick Ronson, Bowie’s longstanding collaborator from the early days. By all accounts I’ve read, the crowd went absolutely ballistic when Ronson came onstage and joined the band for some numbers.
In her autobiography Anti Diva, Rough Trade’s Carole Pope talks about their opening for Bowie at this concert:
When Bowie hit the stage, I stood riveted in the wings… David stood at the lip of the stage singing ‘Modern Love’ shaking one leg like Elvis. The show was an amalgamation of music and theatre. While performing ‘Cracked Actor’, Bowie was seated in a director’s chair, wearing dark glasses; like a new wave Hamlet, he sang a soliloquy to a skull… Bowie grossed $2.3 million from that show.
It has been 35 years since that concert so only parts of it remain sticking to my brain cells. I recall, though, certain “snapshots” and short segments of that incredible powerhouse show. I remember, quite vividly, Bowie hovering over the crowd on an elevated cherry picker machine singing Space Oddity, and I remember the Cracked Actor segment (pic above) with Bowie singing to a skull. He also did a great job on Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat, and tore the place up when he kicked into Rebel Rebel. It took two encores before the crowd would let him leave the stage for the night.
This is the concert setlist for the Serious Moonlight concert tour. It was the same setlist for both nights of the Toronto shows, as well as for other Canadian dates:
Look Back in Anger Heroes What in the World Golden Years Fashion Let’s Dance Breaking Glass Life on Mars? Sorrow Cat People (Putting Out Fire) China Girl Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) Rebel Rebel White Light/White Heat Station to Station Cracked Actor Ashes to Ashes Space Oddity Young Americans Fame TVC 15
Encore 1: Star Stay The Jean Genie
Encore 2: Modern Love
The performers that night were:
David Bowie – lead vocals, guitar, saxophone
Earl Slick – guitar
Carlos Alomar – guitar, backing vocals, music director
Carmine Rojas – bass guitar
Tony Thompson – drums, percussion
Dave Lebolt – keyboards, synthesizers
Steve Elson – saxophones
Stan Harrison – saxophones, woodwinds
Lenny Pickett – saxophones, woodwinds
George Simms – backing vocals
Frank Simms – backing vocals
Here is the original Toronto Star article and concert review by Peter Goddard (who, if memory serves, covered just about every Toronto concert of any importance in the 80s and beyond):
Sadly, Mr. Bowie left us a couple of years ago, but what a legacy he left behind! It is staggering. Over the course of 40 years, possibly more, he changed music and pop culture as we know it.
I am so grateful I was there in that 60,000-strong audience on that hot, humid night in 1983-Toronto. Years from now, when I’m sitting in my rocking chair swaddled in an electric blanket or some such heat-producing device, I hope I will still retain some of the special memories of that incredible night.
AC/DC and didn’t really care so much about the previous acts. AC/DC were onstage just before the headlining Rolling Stones, but the AC/DC set absolutely blew away the crowd, driving them into a frenzy. I’ll never forget Angus Young dropping his pants and mooning the audience with an enormous Canadian maple leaf emblazoned on his shiny boxer shorts.
