Sister, Can You Spare A Tune?

Wednesday night, when winter's icy grip came back to Toronto, I headed down to The Ballroom to see Sheezer on the last leg of their 2nd Eastern Ontario tour. They were there to inaugurate a Wednesday live music night show at this new venue. The last time I saw them was at a raucous Halloween party at the Garrison.

The Ballroom is a recent addition to the Entertainment District, a combination funky bowling alley on the main floor and a huge bar on the 2nd floor. I was expecting a trendy hipster hang-out. What I got was a full modern sports bar with TVs everywhere, loud music, and waitresses in skimpy outfits. Beer went for a mind-boggling $9. Sheezer was going to play here? This was too uncomfortable close to some snarky comments from this blog post suggesting that they were no better than any cover band playing at Crocodile Rock.

The opening act was a 3 girl band called Rouge. Hmm, didn't the 2 singers showed up a few weeks back as Allie Hugh's bridesmaids? Yup. They tried to get the room going but it was kind of hard when the stage is surrounded by bar tables. Finally, a couple of tables were moved away giving some of us a bit of room to dance at the front. Rouge sounded like the Bangles updated with 21st century electronica, although for one song they did sing "sex my body" accompanied by some 80s moves and sounds. The drummer kept up an insistent beat and they had some fun, danceable tunes.

When Sheezer finally came on, the rest of tables were moved from the front of the stage. However, with the bar only a few feet back, there still wasn't enough room near the stage. Of course, the rest of the bar is cavernous but too far from the action. There was enough space to fit tonight's smaller crowd, but it would have been insufficient for their previous sold-out shows.

They played some great Weezer songs from the Blue and Pinkerton albums, much to the delight of the crowd. I believe that a fair number of people in the audience were musicians or in the business. There were also some finicky Weezer fans. Even with these Weezer "classics", some would only join the throng on certain numbers. Otherwise, they wandered back to their table. The only sad bit of news is that apparently Robin Hatch won't be going with them on their Canadian Western tour.

As to live music at the Ballroom, the promoters will have to work out some logistics if they want to make this work better: the tables, the area near the stage compared to the rest of the huge space, and even the loud music seeping up from the bowling alleys downstairs.