On the Road Again
Live Review

Bush, with Veruca Salt
and Age of Electric
Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto
April 17, 1997

Considering this show sold out in less than 30 minutes, it's no wonder the packed Gardens had a palpable sense of adoration all night from the crowd that waited breathlessly for its heros in Bush to take the stage. Vancouver's Age of Electric was added to the bill quite recently, and considering the other two acts to share the stage that night were far higher-profile, the half-full arena cheered mightily when this pop-rock foursome hit the stage puctually at 7:30 p.m. Age of Electric's half-hour set was well-played and well-received, considering they were the underdog, and the moshing began on the first chords of the first song, surprisingly.

Veruca Salt (Chicago) pranced onstage with Nina Gordon and Louise Post wearing matching gold lamé jumpsuits (black spandex up the back), and played for a stadium-rocking 50 minutes of fun and frolic. The band had an excellent reception and was louder than most of Bush's set later. Nina told the audience once, followed by Louise echoing the sentiment at the end of the set, that they were so cool, she "felt like getting fucked up," at which point she held up what looked like a bottle of JB to toast the awesome crowd. A gigantic putple banner with a gold octopus hung behind Veruca Salt to remind all present of their latest album title, "Eight Arms to Hold You," with the octopus' eyes flashing in red bursts throughout the set. On their last song, Louise exchanged her guitar for a pink, blow-up plastic one and proceeded to bash timidly on a couple of cymbals, then on Nina until the end of the song, then she threw the guitar into the crowd, where it was promptly torn in two as people grabbed hysterically for it.

By the time Bush finally came onstage, the crowd was zealous and hyper and the roar that greeted the band was thunderous, bringing back many hazy memories of early '80s concerts I attended as a teenager in that very stadium, although the bulk of the audience seemed far younger tonight. Bush played all the expected hits ("Everything Zen," "Greedy Fly," "Swallowed," Cold Contagious," "A Tendency To Start Fires," "Machine Head") plus lots of filler, with lead singer Gavin Rossdale left alone to play "Glycerine" and a couple of other songs solo on guitar while the teeny-boppers held lighters aloft. This was every inch a Gardens RAWK show, the glorious stadium concert with all the trimmings, just like in days of old...man, there really aren't very many people who can fill a stadium this way any more...

Behind Bush, a massive slatted backdrop held projected psychedelic images mixed with live shots of the band that made the crowd squeal like piggies whenever Gavin's face was enlarged behind himself. Gavin made sparing use of two catwalks built on either side of the stage, to hail the peanut galleries on stages left and right, while also managing to roll around on centre stage once, broadcast larger-than-life on the screen for all to see.

After Gavin's solo three-song stint, as the band was re-convening on stage, he mentioned casually that the British band no longer had to use the "X" after its name in Canada, as revealed at a press conference earlier that day. The legal owner of the name "Bush" in Canada since the early '70s has been guitarist Dominic Troiano, who came to an agreement with Bush X to allow them the rights to the name Bush worldwide now. As a gesture of thanks, and in accordance with Troiano's wishes, Bush (now there's only one, and it is ruled by King Gavin Rossdale) donated $20,000 to each of two charities of Troiano's choice, The Starlight Foundation (which grants wishes to terminally ill children) and Music Therapy. Without going into so much detail, Gavin informed the crowd of the acquittal of the use of "X" after its name, and dedicated the next song, a pretty faithful cover of The Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" performed acoustically, to MUSIC in general.

After an hour and a half, the band exited and waited a ridiculous almost-ten-minutes before returning to the stage for a four-song encore, kicked off by "Swallowed." The slats opened on the last song to reveal elaborate lights shining through them onto the crowd - cool effect. Gavin worked the crowd left to right on the raised platforms as the drums built up, and he left with a simple, "See you when the sun is shining!" referring to their just-announced Canadian summer tour (see DAMN old listings for all dates), and ended the evening with "Little Things" as the screens turned to Zoo-TV-Tour-ish slogans flashing to the youth of today.

Overall, the sound was good, from where I was standing in the middle of the floor, considering it was a stadium. Several people commented as they filed past me on the way out, that the sound had sucked, but compared to stadium concerts of yesteryear, I thought it was actually just fine. A pretty civilized crowd, there were only a handful of drunks (whereas I remember mostly drunks when I used to go to stadium concerts 15 years ago...), but I digress. It was an entertaining show: that's what I went for, and that's what I got...entertained.

- Karen Pace