viva canadia!

track 73 was "sing me spanish techno" off of the new pornographers' latest twin cinema. track 74 was "when love and hate collide from a sort-of-bootleg def leppard acoustic album, unplugged and unshaved.
most of the new pornographers are from canada, and the def leppard set was recorded in the studios of much music, which is kind of like canada's version of early 80's mtv.

i saw the commercials for the def leppard/journey tour the other day, and nearly soiled myself with glee. i almost went to the def leppard/bryan adams show a couple of years ago, but now i'm glad i waited. imagine the sheer rock power that will be present at whichever county fairs are lucky enough to host these guys. think about the mind-blowing, face-melting possibilities for two-band encore medleys. after the "last" song, the lights go down in the rodeo arena and the members from both bands sly into their positions. it's not really dark because it's only 7:00, but it's darker, and the audience is polite and pretends not to see them. suddenly the high clear of voice of whoever's playing steve perry at the moment rings through the night; "just a small town girl!" and then silence, but with heavy, heavy delay, so it takes almost as long for "girl" to die as it does for the crowd to stop applauding. he does this three more times and the anticipation is driving everybody apeshit. the last time a single white spotlight shines on the singer and he continues to sing the rest of the verse, acapella. he gets drums on the first part of the next verse, bass on the second part, and then they get to that part where the guitarist is playing his scales increasingly faster and louder and he just keeps going, faster and louder until people are getting a little nervous that he's not going to stop and some of the kids are crying and then he hits the strings twice and the def leppard singer is immediately there with "libbin like a bomp!" or whatever he says at the beginning of "pour some sugar" also with heavy delay and the def leppard guitarist is crawling up and down the neck and in the part of the crowd where the hardcore journey and def leppard fans have been fighting all night and going to the bathroom during the other band's sets, the tide of the battle turns and some of the fallen def leppard warriors rise and began to swing their chains with renewed vigor.
from there they move into "girl can't help it," then "animal," "anyway you want it," slow it down a little bit for "faithfully" and "love bites" and then they turn up the "rock" knob again, and during the whole set there is an unprecedented amount of cooperation betwen the two bands; the guitarists are doing that thing where they rest on each other's backs and then turn around to play each other's guitars, the singers are smashing their sweaty foreheads together and sharing the mic, journey's drummer is trying not to show off the fact that he has two arms and as they end the set by moving back into "don't stop believing," both singers are exhorting the crowd to never, ever stop believing (in the power of rock and roll, but that's just understood and not explicitly stated) and then everybody on stage sings "oo-oo-woo-oo, nothin' stands between looove and yoooouu!" in twelve part harmony and some people's heads do explode but mostly heart's just stop beating for a few seconds and then darkness! again! twenty minutes of applauding until hands start bleeding and then everybody goes home to lead slightly better lives and def leppard/journey move on to the next town.

track 75
track 76