I was pretty excited to win 2 tickets to see The Cottars last night. That excitement proved to be premature.
We arrived at the Dalhousie Art Centre about 45 minutes early. While waiting to be allowed to get to our seat, I ran into a cousin of mine, who told me he had visited this blog. Hello, Delbert. His wife, Karen, actually tugged on the beard of the son of a friend of hers, as the beard reminded all of us of the tuft of hair on a billy goat's chin! If she hadn't, Patricia would have. If Patricia hadn't after Karen hadn't, then I would have been tempted.
Turns out that we sat in front of the agent for the band. She talked in a loud voice about how she was trying to become a Canadian citizen, how she was tired of living in Texas, etc.
She also said that the band had undergone some personnel changes. The brother-sister combo remained, but there were two new members. IF they had sufficiently rehearsed, it certainly didn't show as they were stumbling over each other's words, forgetting what songs they were about to do, and so on. The brother told a long, shaggy dog story about a fellow who raised bees as a hobby that elicited nary a chuckle from the audience. He told a funny-to-him story in French that he then translated into English for those of us who don't speak that language. And they played songs in such a perfunctory manner that one had the impression that they were late for another, more pressing, appointment.
Mercifully, the first half of the show was over. We decided to leave; Patricia was not feeling well, and we were not enjoying ourselves.
You know, Leonard Cohen toured Canada again last year and this. He purposely began the tour in Eastern Canada because he wanted to work the kinks out of the show before moving on to bigger markets and bigger cities. As far as I know, from what I heard, there were few if any bugs to stamp out. I will be charitable and hope that the Cottars are trying something similar here, and that they recognize that they need to make some improvements or they will burn up a lot of good will with their fans.
I think I'll give Delbert a call and ask him if the second half of the concert was any better than the first.
Bevboy
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