On the Road Again
Live Reviews:

Kula Shaker
July 5, 1999
Opera House, Toronto

The friggin' hottest day of the year today!! I gotta ride my bike in a solid head wind of 25km/hour, pushing my melon back and giving me a constant hot air shower. This is brutal beyond belief. I've already drank a couple of beers and gone for a swim, but I'm still overheating at the fact that I gotta cram into the Opera House with hundreds of clean hippies to see Kula Shaker tonight.

The band is already on stage when I arrive to find a packed Opera House, bopping ever so politely to the sounds and colours emerging from the stage. Kula Shaker are quite the package when you think about it. They've got their 60's pop song structure for a base, the pomposity and power of 70's rock, and a 90's sensibility that allows for that great transition from beats to bonafide rock riffs. There's something for everyone.

But my mark my words, these guys one day will resurrect stadium rock. See, everyone's being fooled by their pop hits. You don't realize whats going on until ya see them live. Yeah, they're playing sing a long pop ditties, but they've wrapped them in a thick coating of arena rock's past giants like Yes, The Who and Pink Floyd (just have a look at the cover of Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts — it's this generation's Wish You Were Here!). Final verification: Keyboard and Moog whiz Jay Darlington is dressed tonight like he just walked off the front cover of Uriah Heep's Demons and Wizards.

However, none of this hi-falutin' analysis is currently floating around in the head of the crowd here. They've all achieved a lapsed state of being and are rockin with the Shaker. I just can't help noticing how polite the whole thing is. Regardless of my somewhat wonky theories, the band put on an excellent show, pushing the new album and playing much heavier and dynamic versions of "Mystical Machine Gun", "SOS", "Sound of Drums" and "Shower Your Love". The always cavernous nature of the Opera House added to the hugeness of their rock lavishness. And all the kids got home early. Biggest set of parents with cars, waiting, after any recent concert that I've seen.

Reading back over this review, I realize that the same heat that has frazzled my brain probably has just as much to do with the lackadaisical attitude of clean hippies at the show as Kula Shaker does...Good night!

P.S. They did a smokin' cover of Deep Purple's "Hush". I'm telling ya — the writing is on the wall!