After 20 years of playing together Ween still delivers

The end of last month I travelled all the way to Toronto during rush hour traffic to see one of my favourite bands: WEEN!

I had never seen the band live before but after purchasing and watching their live DVD (“Live in Chicago”) a couple of years ago, I couldn't wait. The band is touring in support of their La Cucaracha CD (review still to come) so you knew that the band would be hyped.

The sound and the acoustics at The Docks was perfect for Ween's diverse set (and musical genre bouncing). It was hilarious that right at the beginning of their second song, “Fiesta,” the drummer broke his snare drum head. The band stopped, had a good laugh about it and started the song back up. It's nice to see bands not take stuff so seriously.

Ween played songs from all across their 20 year career and hitting every single one of their previous albums. While the band still sampled about five songs from their newest release, their two-and-a-half hour show left a lot of time for some of the classics.

After a couple of spins of the band's newest CD, I have to say that many of the tunes do sound a lot better live. “Object,” “The Party,” “Fiesta,” “Learning to Love,” and “Own Bare Hands” were fantastic. The country-styled “Learning to Love” made the crowd move, while “Own Bare Hands” gave the night a hard rock kick in the ass with its crunching guitars and vulgar lyrics.

One real surprise for me was how crazy the crowd went for the song “Bananas and Blow” off of the White Pepper album. I've never been into that song and I was amazed to see how many people love it and sing along with it. I even think the band was totally impressed with how loud the crowd was during that song.

Although the band rocked throughout the night, I think that they lost the crowd slightly near the end of their show. We had a huge guitar solo war during a 10 minute rendition of “Frank,” and other lengthy guitar jams, so when the band played “Woman and Man,” many people headed for the bathroom or to get a drink. They played it well, though…just not the best tune on the new disc.

The band hit some of my favourites during their performance. “Spinal Meningitis Got Me Down,” “Roses Are Free,” “Transdermal Celebration,” “Buckingham Green” and “Dr. Rock” were all nailed flawlessly.

For $30, the band played like it cost us $100 to attend. The band was lively on stage all night and delivered on so many levels. I have to say that seeing the band live was amazing and when they go back to Toronto, I'll be heading back through the crazy traffic and paying for a overpriced hotel to do it all again.