Justin Rutledge Is MOR

Horseshoe Tavern

Toronto, ON

on Nov 28 2008

Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

12/01/2008 1:19pm

It seemed like The Warped 45s brought all their friends to their opening slot at Justin Rutledge's show on Friday night. Their entire set was filled with screaming from their female fans (or girlfriends?). Dual frontmen and cousins Dave and Ryan McEathron got tons of screams, and there were even signs for one member, which called him a "hot tamale."

This kind of harkened back to Cuff The Duke's show at the Horseshoe in August, which drew similar screams, but there was no similarly crazy behaviour during The Warped 45s' set. Overall, they played pretty unremarkable alt.country, and it's hard to say what was worse: their music or the contingent of drunken frat boys dancing behind me with beers in their hands and their arms around each other. What is it about alt.country men that makes ladies go crazy?

It's a safe bet that the members of Paso Mino don't know Rutledge's music that well because, if they did, they would have understood why a (possibly inebriated?) fan kept screaming "Lay me down sweet Jesus!" during every song in their set. This drew confused looks from the group, who may perhaps be better known as Jason Collett's backing band. They were also similarly unremarkable and though the aforementioned fan's screaming became annoying after about three times, you couldn't blame her.

The Horseshoe was packed when Rutledge took the stage with his band and self-deprecatingly thanked the audience for showing up to the first date on his "incredible shrinking erection tour." Friday's show was the first night of Rutledge's Incredible Shrinking Tour, a series of Toronto shows that will get progressively smaller each night. It finishes on Tuesday at tiny Parkdale bar Not My Dog.

Something seemed missing from Rutledge's set. He opened with "Come Summertime" from 2006's The Devil On A Bench In Stanley Park. That's quite possibly his most middle-of-the-road song, and things stayed that way from then on.

Though the first third of the set contained an interesting, reworked version of "1855" from 2005's No Never Alone, the fact that the rest of the first part of his set was heavy on Man Descending songs hurt it a bit. It probably doesn’t help that "St. Peter," "Everyone's In Love" and "Waterloo" are some of Rutledge's quietest songs. Opening a set with some of your most subdued numbers is never really a good idea.

Things picked up about halfway through with the addition of "The Suffering Of Pepe O'Malley (Pt. III)" and "Lay Me Down Sweet Jesus." Both led to crowd singalongs, and the latter shut that fan up. Rutledge then moved through "Robin's Tune" and "This Is War" from Devil. The latter was probably the evening's loudest, most rock 'n' roll tune, and Rutledge was practically screaming into the mic by the time the song finished. If only it had come earlier.

"The Suffering Of Pepe O'Malley (Pt. IV)" quieted things down a bit, but Rutledge got the energy up again with a reworked version of "Special" that featured the chorus from The Pretenders' "Brass In Pocket" thrown in halfway through. It seems like this shouldn't work, but it did. Rutledge has done this a few times, but he always makes the transition seamlessly, and it comes across unexpectedly, even though it's beginning to become a fixture in his shows.

"Too Sober To Sleep," probably Rutledge's best known song, led to another audience singalong. It's also an alt.country masterpiece and is probably the best representation of what the genre is all about, with its "too sober to sleep/too drunk to cry" chorus. "Greenwich Time," probably the loudest song on Man Descending, finished things up.

Rutledge returned to the stage by himself and launched into a great cover of The Mountain Goats' "This Year" before his band rejoined him for the Calexico-sounding "I'm Gonna Die (One Sunny Day)." Rutledge then jumped into the crowd and did what's become an expected occurrence at his gigs: he stood on a chair and got the audience to sing "Don't Be So Mean, Jellybean" with him.

While Man Descending is a great album and deserved to make the Polaris Music Prize long list, Rutledge faltered during this show by opening with too many of the disc's quietest songs. Varying things a bit would have helped him greatly. He also has to start doing some new things during his performances. While "Don't Be So Mean, Jellybean" is a fan favourite and is undeniably infectious and fun, that Rutledge closes every gig this way is starting to make every one of his shows seem the same. He's one of Canada's best singer/songwriters and his talent is extremely underappreciated. It'd just be nice to see him change things up a bit on stage.

Here's what Rutledge played:

"Come Summertime"
"St. Peter"
"1855"
"Everyone's In Love"
"A Penny For The Band"
"Waterloo"
"The Suffering Of Pepe O'Malley (Pt. III)"
"Lay Me Down Sweet Jesus"
"Robin's Tune"
"This Is War"
"The Suffering Of Pepe O'Malley (Pt. IV)"
"Special"
"Too Sober To Sleep"
"Greenwich Time"

Encore:
"This Year"
"I'm Gonna Die (One Sunny Day)"
"Don't Be So Mean, Jellybean"