Weakerthans - Kess wasn't feeling well last night, so Landy called and told me to meet him at Bottom of the Hill at about 10:00 to see Winnepeg's The Weakerthans sing and dance. Bottom of the Hill one of my favorite clubs, and it was free, so what the hell. Not to mention they're a Canadian band. Visions of Glass Tiger and Loverboy vidoes in my head, I whipped up some pasta, sucked it down, and took off for the show.

When I got there, Landy informed how incredibly, woefully unhip I was, my knowledge of Candadian provicial capitals aside. Not only were these guys not very likely to come on stage wearing stretchy head and wristbands, but they were one of the biggest, brightest stars in the indie world these days. If he and the amount of ironic t-shirts and workshirts not necessarily worn by guys named Joe in the room were any indication. I was in for quite a show.

The first band out, The Constantines, started making a bunch of well thought out noise that bored me quickly, so I headed toward the back, for the merchandise table, where I was hit with a flood of books about a bunch of rockin' & rollin' political causes and recipes. I chatted briefly with the behind the table. I made some small talk about the weather in San Francisco, and shrugged softly when he asked me about the earthquake problem while I checked out liner notes on the CDs on the table, and learned that in these two Candaidan bands, I'd stumbled across the statistical improbibility of there not being a single Gord or Gordie among them. Promising to think about buying something later, I went back out toward the stage and waited for the headliners to come out.

They came out and strapped on their guitars. I wasn't sure about their music, but I could relate to them. Short guys, short hair, confused look about them, and John Samson stepped up to the mic, before he even said a word, I saw them. I turned to Woland, "That guy's got unusally large ears for a rockstar," I said motioned toward the backlit glow at the middle of the stage.

Woland grinned, "Yeah. Gonna be a long night."