If you were alive and rocking in Canada during the 90s, odds are you are this co-headlining duo needs no introduction.
For those who shelled out for the VIP experience and showed up early, there was an early acoustic set full of covers, where The Tea Party was briefly joined by I Mother Earth’s frontman Edwin. The band really shines in these intimate settings, giving another side to the big rockstar electric set.
Once the rest of the crowd rolled in, it was time to plug everything in and turn up the rock meter. I Mother Earth took the stage to “Pisser” from 1996’s Scenery & Fish. In fact, the entire setlist would be drawn from this album and their debut Dig, the 2 albums that were recorded with Edwin on vocals.
The crowd really kicked in halfway through the set with “Another Sunday,” which they sang loudly from the opening line. Edwin had to raise his voice to be heard over the chorus. The energy clearly picked up as the Tea Party fans in attendance who had only Much Music knowledge of I Mother Earth lit up.
I’ll point out that, although this show is billed as co-headliners, Montreal has always clearly been a Tea Party city. The crowd heavily skewed in their favour. This makes the decision to leave Much Music staples like “Levitate” and “Not Quite Sonic” off the setlist puzzling. The deeper tracks left a lot of the crowd indifferent.
“One More Astronaut” came around to light everyone up again. The live version featured a much bigger percussion breakdown, with a chance for the tabla drums to shine through, a theme that would lead into set-ender “Rain Will Fall,” which saw The Tea Party’s Jeff Burrows come bang some tams.
It then it was time for The Tea Party. There aren’t many frontmen who strut onstage with that classic rockstar persona anymore, but Jeff Martin is one of them. He plugs in, gives the crowd a Cheshire smile that says, ‘let’s get dark’ and goes right into the opening riff of “The River,” sending the crowd into delight.
If you’re a fan of old-school Tea Party, this was the night for you as nothing n the set list was from anything after 1999’s Triptych. Oddly enough, the band who could’ve delved into several deeper tracks and still please the audience, stuck to their big singles.
There is a good balance between the heavy riffs of “Temptation” and “The Bazaar” and the slower more melodic side. “Psychopomp” is truly chilling live and there is a feeling of utter joy sitting in a crowd singing “Heaven Coming Down” at the top of their lungs as Martin strums his 12-string.
It wouldn’t be a Tea Party show if there weren’t a tonne of covers randomly mixed into the songs. We got a snippet of Tool’s “Sober,” U2’s “With or Without You,” and The Tragically Hip’s “Bobcaygeon” thrown into the mix.
While the quality of the music was great, the format of this seemed off. Giving each band 75 minutes seemed off. It was clearly a Tea Party crowd and Tea Party fans are used to seeing the band play 2 hours; I saw some of their Montreal shows in their younger years go close to 3 hours. 75 minutes for them is 8 songs. I support bands covering extra touring costs with mini VIP shows beforehand, but in this case it seemed like the runtime for that was just plucked out of the main set.
Still a great night of Canadian rock in our fair city, proving once again that Montreal rocks!
Richard Brunette
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