hot hot heat / hey rosetta
10-10-2010
capital city music hall, ottawa

this show happened over a really messy week within a really messy fall, as i was drinking and going to shows almost every night (funded by osap...), and i almost didn't make it to the show at all. there were other messy nights that fall, but this night was probably the climax of the whole thing...

a whole bunch of things had culminated together into a really epic collapse: (1) i had gone back on hormones and was going through the messy part of the process, (2) several relationships were crashing down all at the same time (in no small part due to my decision to go back on hormones), (3) i was losing interest in my second tenure in school, as a consequence of coming to the clear realization that i neither wanted to work in the field of computer science (despite being a credit short of graduating with a second degree...) nor in the realm of law (which i had been strongly considering transferring into over the first half of the year) and (4) i was finding myself re-interested in a music scene that had been dead to me for several years leading up to this. i suppose it's also worth pointing out that i was 29 years old, and a little bit afraid of what might happen on the other side of my next birthday. i don't have problems with addictions, but this was a kind of a perfect storm scenario that put me into a situation that was essentially a binge over much of the fall. it took me until very late in october before i became cognizant of just how crazy the fall i had just lived really was, and how badly i blew the semester - but i need to be clear that i had really made the decision to stop caring before i fell into it, and in truth probably should have realistically dropped all my classes in september, before i showed up, rather than at the last minute in november.

i don't regret the binge. in fact, i think i needed it - and i came out of it feeling reinvigorated and sort of reborn.

i guess i had a lot of pent up energy, and it just had to get out. i'd spent the last two years studying something that i ultimately just didn't have any interest in and legitimately didn't want to build a career around, and i spent most of the two years before that working nights on the boring, bourgeois side of the city (requiring daily hour long bicycle rides in both directions). the only reason i tolerated these years of seclusion was that there wasn't anything happening around me that i had any interest in, anyways. what i mean is that i didn't feel like i was missing out on living a life in the city because the truth is that the city that i lived in didn't have anything approaching an interesting music scene, anyways. i wasn't missing shows because there weren't any show to miss. when i saw that that was starting to change, i was almost powerless to stop myself from ripping apart the entire edifice of my existence, from the top down to the foundation, and just letting go and enjoying what was happening around me. i mean, i knew it wouldn't last forever and if i didn't engage i'd just miss out on it....

i was less hungover and more "smoked over" from seeing quest for fire the night before, didn't wake up until late in the afternoon and then found myself pre-drinking while applying makeup at the last minute, because i didn't want to spend too much at the bar...then it took longer to walk there than i wanted, tipsier than i wanted to be, and in the end i couldn't find the front door of this venue, this being the first and only time i ever went there....

even with all that, i actually still didn't show up to the venue substantially later than i normally would - it was a ten minute detour, and i was there a half hour after doors or something. rather, it seems like hey rosetta started practically at doors in order to make space for two lengthy co-headlining sets. the premise of lengthy sets is a good one, and had i shown up at doors i would have appreciated it, but these things need to be advertised, and it was not done. i consequently missed about half of the set.

what i did catch was from a bit of a distance, as the bar is really not set up for concerts (the strange design was also an issue at the old capital city music hall) and there really wasn't a way to get closer to the stage. what i remember is trying to navigate a narrow space (bars on both sides) through a lot of people that were even more drunk than i was and that were singing the songs at a volume that truly overpowered the band. the place was clearly past capacity, as well. it was a rowdy, crowded mess with truly awful sound.

that said, it wasn't a bad experience. the place was clearly having a good time. the crowd was not just engaged but intensely engaged. they just should have played a larger venue with better sound.

there is some footage of both bands up top, but a full set from june, 2011 is below. despite being recorded nearly eight months later, it is actualy a decent reproduction of the setlist, which does not appear to have changed much over 2011.



the above hot hot set was recorded in australia, about two months after the show in ottawa. again: the setlist is pretty similar. there is some ottawa footage up top.

the venue actually cleared out substantially after the hey rosetta set, although a lot of people also came down from the balcony, so the end result was kind of a wash, from where i was standing.

hot hot heat are another band from around the turn of the century that are incredibly frustrating in their refusal to take an extra step of abstraction, although they at least seem to realize that they're a slightly abstract bar band and wouldn't for a second try and trick you otherwise. they legitimately want you to dance first and ask questions later, and for some of their fans i'm sure that's good enough.

personally, they've driven me nuts for years because you consistently get these bursts of legitimate brilliance nestled into records that are truly mediocre at best. the record they were touring at the time - future breeds - was a prime example, but not the only one.

the record begins with the track "yvr", which damn near pulled me out of my chair when i first heard it. this track is everything that modern pop should be, but isn't. i stated at the time that i wanted to turn on the radio and hear a stream of music that sounded like this song...

but, the record then immediately tanks. there's almost nothing else worth mentioning about it - it's just a collection of generic rock songs with a mildly punk aesthetic. it's utter mediocrity.

i would normally write a band off entirely if i can only get two minutes of valuable listening in off of the record. but, these two minutes are so engaging that the actual reaction is immense frustration. you almost wish that they hadn't released the track, so as to not tease you with it. i mean, if you're not going to follow through with it, why release it....

staying to listen to the set was no different than any other experience i've had with the band. there were only short moments in the set that i thought were interesting; overall, i found them to be pretty boring. but, those moments were so compelling that i had to stay to the end, even though i felt a pull to leave....

i actually remember taking this curious picture very well. it was taken on the way back into my apartment and both indicates how i was feeling and how much i'd had to drink. i was actually dancing and skipping in circles, as i was kissing the sky.