by RileyLewis » 8/12/2015, 4:21 pm
I don't blame Trusty for the cancellation, nor the band. Ticket sales were low on the show and they had to cancel. What I don't respect is being told that it would not be cancelled (after a few inquiries, knowing it wasn't selling well), when they knew it was headed in that direction. It would have been like the band telling fans that the Parry Sound show was going ahead knowing that there were issues behind the scene. I congratulate them for being open and honest in this current case, but in the case of the 2nd Regina show they weren't. And I shouldn't even say "they" since the band wasn't directly involved, it was Trusty. He did a lot for fans and I thank him for that. But he was arrogant about that situation and made promises that everything was fine and that the show was going ahead, even in the face of poor sales and the fairly obvious case it was going to be cancelled. But being that he was an insider, I trusted him and I regret that.
Why else would you not respect me? Because I don't brown-nose to the band about how each release was better than the last? The band hasn't put out a 4 or 5-star album in 15 years, and we can't blame Bob Rock any more. Sure Curve made some improvements (and was a decent 3-star release, I'd say), but they are nowhere near the level of creativity they were in their prime. Most bands don't even make it past 2 or 3 albums (if that) so I am grateful for their music even if it's not as good as it was in the past, but it's disingenuous to believe they still have the creative juices they once did. And if the new album goes even further out there (Can't Stop Now-style) then it's even more reinforced. Hopefully Arnold Lanni will rein them back in and bring back some complexity and atmosphere into it.
I still love OLP for their live performances, they are one of the best bands out there for that. But my criticisms are valid, I think, of their newer releases. Curve was an improvement, but not a full return to form. Some of the recent demos have been outstanding though (Grocery List, Wolf (original one we heard, not the recent slower and quieter one), Warnings, etc. For some reason they keep neutering their songs in production though, or cutting really great tracks. That's a production decision, but one I think that hurts them.
So yeah, I'm critical, but I'm not just making up my criticisms, I think they came from a well-reasoned position. If you are capable of losing respect for someone based on their reasoned-opinions (even if they disagree with your own tastes) then you're the one who has issues, not me.
Just because I don't like the recent albums doesn't make me a monster, it makes me a reasonable person who can see the band has lost some of what made it great, and now second-guesses itself so much in production that it release shells of what the original songs were when conceived.