Old and new from Blue Rodeo
What is it about the cold and Blue Rodeo? Every couple of years the band embarks on a tour in the new year, landing in Saskatoon usually on a frigid, otherwise useless night.
This is almost fitting for a most Canadian of bands, who entertained a capacity crowd Saturday night at TCU Place with a show that was at times all too familiar, but also had enough surprises to provide some warmth on a cold January night.
First up was Trust Yourself, a song Blue Rodeo has performed many times on previous stops. Just when you thought another January, another Blue Rodeo concert, more of the same, the band reached deep into its archives to unleash 1995’s Side of the Road, a slow scorcher. That was followed by Rain Down on Me and Love and Understanding, two signature songs that haven’t been heard by a Saskatoon audience for a long time. With no album of original material to play (Live at Massey Hall was released in 2015), it became clear early on that this Blue Rodeo concert would take a few twists and turns off the band’s well-beaten path.
The Saskatoon show was the fifth of the tour, and some of the kinks were still being worked out. Frontman Greg Keelor left the stage after his solo Dark Angel, only to return partway through the next song. He later quipped to fellow frontman Jim Cuddy he thought it was time for his break.
That came three songs later when Cuddy was joined by guitar wizard Colin Cripps for an acoustic version of One Light Left in Heaven, a beautiful, relatively unknown Cuddy ballad. Keelor joined the pair for a pair of oldies — What Am I Doing Here and the rarely heard Is It You. Cuddy, Keelor, Cripps and three guitars — it was a memorable, spellbinding moment.
Backed as always by bassist Bazil Donovan, drummer Glenn Milchem, keyboardist Mike Boguski and Bob Egan on slide guitar, among other instruments, the band got the show rolling with a closing lineup and encore that included Till I Am Myself Again, Try, Diamond Mine, Hasn’t Hit Me Yet and Lost Together, all classics from the Blue Rodeo vault.
A highlight of the encore, though, was the less familiar — an acoustic rendition of Till I Gain Control Again, a Rodney Crowell song covered in 1993’s Five Days in July. Dusted off for Saturday’s performance, the song is about life taking some unexpected turns, sort of like the concert itself. Intentional or not, it was a perfect note on which to close the show.