The CanCon Catalogue

I wanted to love this show. I really did. You Will Land With a Thud was one of my favourite albums of last year, and the raucous eight-piece band I heard on record seemed like they would put on an exciting, high-energy live show. And don't get me wrong, they do-- or, at least, they obviously can. But there were enough bad ideas in the night's organization to take what should have been a great show and turn it into a merely ok concert-going experience. So what follows is a list of suggestions for either the band or the venue (I'm not sure who was behind these decisions) so that future shows aren't similarly tarnished.

1. If you're playing a government town, don't do it on a weeknight.
I've never been to the East Coast, so I don't know if this applies there. But if there's one thing I've learned about Victoria in the short time I've been here, it's that the party is reserved strictly for the weekend. Other than that, the nightlife is limited to-- well, none as far as I can tell. Put it this way: when it's nigh-impossible to find a downtown restaurant that's open past seven on a Sunday night, you can be darn well sure that putting on a concert by a little-known band after ten o'clock on a Wednesday is a good way to ensure a far-less-than-capacity turn-out. When one in four of the people there is in the band, something's wrong with the scheduling.

2. If you have to play on a weeknight, start earlier. Or at least on time.
Not being much of a bar person, it is a giant pet peeve of mine when I go to see a show and have to hang out in said bar for an hour before the band I came to see starts, especially when I arrive after the advertised start-time. This goes double when the advertised start-time is ten o clock and I have to go to work the next morning. And again, this is a government town, and you're playing in the government district-- odds are I'm not alone with the early morning wake-up call.

3. If you start after the advertised start-time, the opening act should not play a full set.
Especially when the opening act is actually three people from the headliners.

4. If the opening act plays a full set, then you should start almost immediately after they do, and not take a half hour break prior to taking the stage.
Especially when the opening act is actually three people from the headliners, meaning there's no need to switch set-ups. Everything was already on stage! Why didn't you tune your instruments before the opening act went on? Why did you wait half an hour after they finished before even going up there to see if they worked?

5. If you have made all of the above errors, for god's sake when you finally take the stage, put the crowd into a great mood, have a full dance-floor (a real feat when doing that involves having literally 95% of the audience out there, do not take a "short break" twenty minutes in.

This is where it really became clear someone involved was not thinking straight. Because despite all of the above setbacks, they could have been erased from my memory if the band had just played their set right through. Let me reiterate: the Tom Fun Orchestra put on a great show. Eight band members (including an accordionist, trumpeter, and violinist) crammed onto a tiny stage, all but the drummer right up front, giving a full-on assault of dirty Celtic rock led by a guttural, Tom Waits-ish front-man that has almost the entire audience dancing is something you are unlikely to experience anywhere else. I was loving it as they sped through what was shaping up to be their entire recorded output, building to momentum which each new song, when suddenly it's announced that the band will be taking a short break. What?

Again, let me state the facts: it's a Wednesday, it's a government town, and now it's after midnight. It's also freezing (inexplicably, the doors were left open, possibly to allow the smoke machine to keep doing its thing, but who really likes smoke machines anyways?) and we had to pay a cover to get into a a bar that is almost empty. This is not Saturday night at the city's hottest bar. People are not just hanging and-- wow!-- they get treated to a great live show.

No, people have very obviously changed their nightly routine and handed over cash to come watch the band. So you don't pull the "take a break so they buy more drinks" after the band plays for less than hour, especially when it's now past midnight, and especially when the audience is already dwindling despite an undeniably exciting performance. The "short" break is the perfect time to leave, and leave they did-- at least a quarter and probably closer to half. This pared down those who watched the rest of the set to just over two dozen. I was tempted to leave myself, but only stayed because I was familiar with the group's work and really wanted to hear some of my favourite songs, which I was sure would be great. And I was right-- when "Last of the Curious Thieves" with its beautiful violin line made way for the driving "Rum and Tequila," it becomes clear why this group has won and been nominated for such high-profile awards as entertainer of the year on their home turf.

But for anyone who just thought they might check the band out and had someplace to be the next day, a break is a great time to take off. And, yeah, they likely left thinking "they seemed like fun," but having missed about half of the band's best songs, the incentive to look into them further or pick up a CD was likely lost. And as to the bar, those who left weren't buying more drinks.

So here's my verdict: the Tom Fun Orchestra are worth seeing, but not so worth it that if you're only sort of interested in them it's worth giving up a good night's sleep to do so. Singer Ian MacDougall was joking when he said "If you haven't figured it out... we're famous. Really famous," and I laughed at the time. But looking at the way the way the show was set up, I can't help but wonder whether someone involved actually believed that they had such high-profile entertainers they could get a big late night/early morning audience coming out on a weeknight to see them, and get them to fill up on drinks besides. Again, I don't know if the band or the venue or some combination are to blame, so I don't want to dissuade you from seeing the band in the future-- it was an enjoyable show despite these set-backs, and that is a testament to their entertainment value. They are a talented group of performers, and if you like their recorded output, you will like them in person. As for me, I still like the band, but am disappointed that a poor set-up prevented me from loving them, and while the small minority of people who stuck the whole thing out were clearly happy, in the end the band was left preaching to the choir while the unconverted skipped out early.

The Tom Fun Orchestra is currently on a cross-Canada tour. For more dates, see tomfun.ca or the band's myspace.