Sparks Vancouver review: a night among friends with good taste

Turns out I enjoyed saying hello to a ton of people I knew tonight as much as, maybe even (dare I say) more than, I enjoyed seeing Sparks again! 

That's a John Prine Singing Mailman shirt ARGH!! has got on

In no particular order, at the Vogue tonight, I chatted with Bill Hemy of the Pointed Sticks, photographer Bev Davies, Art Bergmann, Michael Nathanson and John Lucas of the Starling Effect (and other bands), Brian Minato of the SLIP~ons, radio man Gerald Yoshida, cartoonist/ artist ARGH!!, writer/ film guy Curtis Woloschuk, and my editor (and fellow Montecristo writer) Fiona Morrow. I gather Tim Chan, Tony Lee, Eric Iversen, Patricia Kay, Sabine Clifford and maybe Mark Bignell were also in the house (not sure about the last but I saw him on Granville Street after, anyhow, but maybe he was coming from White Denim, though, or the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club? It was a busy night). I interacted with none of them directly, but everyone I did talk to was an accomplished and interesting person in their own right, and all of them were friendly and in good spirits. It would take a lot to compare to having such a cool range of friends!

So it's no fault of Sparks that the evening's epiphenomenon outshone the concert itself for me. With my run of concertgoing of late, I'm feeling pretty satiated and exhausted, and at any of the last few shows I've been to, have found myself thinking at some point about how I could be home in bed instead. 

And I mean, it's hard to beat having seen the band for the first time, back in 2022, when it was also their first time in Vancouver and my wife was by my side. discovering them more-or-less afresh along with me. I had just interviewed them with my best man David M. And Erika and I had just watched the documentary about them with M. a few weeks prior, and we'd been playing A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip around the house pretty constantly for weeks, at that point, and adoring it. 

So Sparks really didn't have a chance of besting that experience tonight. Sorry, Sparks! You were still great!

As we know, Russell is a non-stop performer, ageless and exuberant, dancing and clapping and staying constantly in motion. while Ron is ever the dour sly minimalist prankster, playing it absurdly straight for long stretches, then cracking a disarming smile, making each gesture count. 

Indeed Ron's dry dramatic reading of "Suburban Homeboy" was an evening high point; I actually don't recall if he did it that way last time. I was up in the balcony so I couldn't read his hat, but have learned via Tim Chan on FB that it read "Canada is not for sale" (!). I do recall him dancing more or less the same dance, however, to  "The Number One Song in Heaven." I think Russell was a bit chattier this time (which I always like), especially when they did the topical "Please Don't Fuck Up My World," absent from the 2022 setlist -- a very welcome inclusion, as were his own remarks about Canada and the US (add Sparks to the list of bands that are embarrassed by what is happening down south). But tonight there wasn't, I don't think, a single song off Angst in My Pants; there were only two songs off A Steady Drip Drip Drip; and there was quite a bit less of Li'l Beethoven, compared to last time -- those being my three favourite Sparks albums of all time. And the light wasn't as good (the room was weirdly hazy, even before the concert started), the sound wasn't as good (something Michael Nathanson also commented on)... everything conspired to leave me feeling that tonight was a slightly lesser evening than the one three years ago.

The lucky folks in the room were the ones who weren't even there in 2022. I bet they had a great time! 

In fact, besides "Please Don't Fuck Up My World," the only two additions tonight that stood out for me were "Do Things My Own Way" and "Running Up a Tab at the Hotel for the Fab" off the new album... They're the only songs, of the new ones they did, that I really grok. I do love "My Devotion," on MAD!, but they did not do it, nor another charmer from late in the album, "A Little Bit of Light Banter." Of the new songs I covered, I was less partial to "Lord Have Mercy" or "Jan Sport Backpack" or "Drowned in a Sea of Tears," though who knows, maybe they'll grow on me? 

I believe what we heard last night was identical to this setlist from earlier in the tour. I am not sure that the Vancouver setlist got transcribed... 

Of course, as Russell mentioned a couple of times during the night, this is a band with 28 albums to their credit, so you have to expect a few deep cuts. I am sure there were at least a few people utterly floored and delighted by the inclusion of "Whippings and Apologies," off their second album (which I have, but don't know so well). I don't think that I knew a single one of those deep cuts tonight. Someone who did would probably feel differently about the night--someone with, say, Music That You Can Dance To, or In Outer Space, or  Introducing Sparks, all of which were repped, none of which are in my collection. And someone who was a big fan of No. 1 in Heaven would be particularly pleased, since it got three songs last night, "Academy Award Performance," "Beat the Clock"--which I don't actually know, but was on the Minnesota setlist linked above, so I'm assuming it got done--and the title track, putting it roughly in the same standing as Li'l Beethoven was last time, as an older album unexpectedly heavily represented. 

To my ear, Li'l Beethoven is a much cooler album than No. 1 in Heaven...

...But that's all just ME I'm writing about, it really has no bearing on Sparks. I'm glad I saw them again, but I am also glad that my streak of non-stop concertgoing is slowing down a bit. This is the third show I've left early in the last couple of weeks, which is saying something; I decided to duck out before the encore, though I then dithered on Granville Street for a bit and ended up chatting with the other concertgoers (one of the aforesaid, taking a smoke break on the sidewalk) after the show was over, so I might as well have stayed! I didn't even lurk around to see if could get records signed. That would have been pretty darn cool, but I gather the Maels don't really do that sort of thing; the merch girl said "they don't even travel with us, they don't meet fans, they don't sign stuff; they leave right after the show is over." (I wonder if Gerald fared better?). In the end it felt like it would just be crass to ambush them in the alleyway or something. They were so happy just to have performed, you know? To then throw another obligation at their feet ("sign my records!") would just have felt wrong.

So I wandered home, there to unpack a backpack full of album covers, none written upon by the Maels. I bought one thing from the merch area, but it's a Christmas gift for someone, and will remain tucked away for a few months. My main Sparks purchase for myself happened at Beat Street earlier, where I picked up (fittingly enough) a nice new pressing of No. 1 in Heaven, paired with an album the Maels wrote and produced, but are not fronting-- a curious techno/ disco thing by a model-turned-singer named Noël. I like that phase of the band less, but I figured if I was going to get things signed, it should be represented. Then I left with nothing signed at all...!

So it goes!