Band : The Weakerthans
Album title : Live At The Burton Cummings Theatre
Label : Anti
Distributor : Epitaph – PIAS
Release date : 22/03/2010
Release : CD

Formed in 1997 by former Propagandhi member John K. Samson (who left to form a publishing company), whom joined up with bassist John P. Sutton and drummer Jason Tait in order to make a more melodic and introspective music than that of his former band. Generally speaking, The Weakethans play an Indie Rock brand that takes elements from Pop Punk and Folk Rock.

Debut album Fallow was released in 1997 to positive reviews from the Canadian press. Former Painted Thin guitarist Stephen Carroll then joined the band, and 2000’s Left And Leaving was issued in 2000. The band moved to Epitaph in 2003, making that year’s Reconstruction Site their debut album for the label. Praise now came from all over the world, and the album not only became the band’s most air-played, but also best selling to date. Sutton left in August 2004, to be replaced by Greg Smith. That same year, the band won 2 prices at the Western Canadian Music Awards, namely in the categories “Outstanding Writer” (Samson) and “Outstanding Independent Album” (Reconstruction Site). In 2005 Chart magazine’s readers poll proclained the band’s Left And Leaving as one of the 10 best albums of all time. Reunion Tour, the band’s 4th album, arrived in late September 2007 and debuted at #22 on the Nielsen SoundScan chart, and at #4 on the Alternative/ Modern Rock charts for Canada…and went to #181 in the US’s Billboard 200. In 2008 the band was one of the winners at the Verge Awards (“Artist Of The Year” category) and took home the ECHO Songwriting Prize for the Reunion Tour song “Night Windows”. [besides actually winning prizes, the band has in the past been nominated for several awards…as you might know, to be nominated for an award is almost as big as actually winning one…including “Best Alternative Album” (for Left And Leaving) at 2001’s Juno Awards, “Alternative Album Of  the Year” (for Reconstruction Site) at 2004’s Juno Awards, “Video Of The Year” (for the clip “The Reasons” off Reconstruction Site) at 2005’s Juno Awards. They were also nominated for the 2008 Polaris Music Prize for the Reunion Tour album]

Although in essence a 4-piece, The Weakerthans are often augmented in numbers in live conditions, Samson’s wife Christine Fellows (keyboards, backing vocals) a frequent addition to the line-up, alongside Jim Bryson and Rusty Matyas (both giving general support) and the occasionally added (trombone and trumpet playing) Tyler Greenleaf, Dave McKinnon (keyboards), and Brian Poirier (acoustic guitar & backing vocals). Several side-projects are known from this band’s members. Samson, for instance, frequently collaborates with his wife. In 2000 Winnipeg Free Press released a spoken word album by Catherine Hunter, the bonus track featuring music played by The Weakerthans as a background to Hunter’s reading of her poem “Rush Hour”. Tait has recorded and played gigs with Broken Social Scene and Do Make Say Think. Together with Samson and Fellows, he collaborated with poet/ moviemaker Clive Holden on the multimedia project Trains Of Winnipeg. Carroll had a guest appearance on the album Draw A Distance. Draw A Border by the band The Details. Together with Tait and Smith, he guested on Greg Graffin’s 2nd solo album, 2006’s Cold As The Clay.

Live At The Burton Cummings Theatre was recorded in their hometown during April 2009 when the band was touring for their Reunion Tour album, and contains a total of 18 songs (good for some 65 minutes – I can’t be sure of the exact time, as one of the songs was misteriously deformed and shorted when downloading our promo copy of the album) taken from the band’s 5 albums. Obviously, that is not the complete set-list of that evening, as proven by the occasional interruptions between tracks. Through my usual info sources I found out there’s also a DVD by the same title, and I suppose that’s where you’ll be able to find the complete concert set-list, accompanied with some bonuses (I hope). To hear some music by this band, visit myspace.com/theweakerthans. To hear more, visit AOL Spinner, where the complete album might still be streaming online at the moment.

As this is a live album, I will not rate it. To let you know my personal appreciation factor of the album, I’ll tell you that, while I can certainly listen to this band’s Pop-geared combination of Folk Rock and acoustic Punk, an album by the band gotten by second-hand means is not something I would listen twice at the most before storing it away in my collection (obviously, to make my review I gave the album more sessions)!

Tony.