Earlier this year, I started doing a weekly photo/video dump on Instagram every Monday. There wasn’t really a rhyme or reason to it – in fact, the fact that I’ve never really been able to figure out how to be a proper Instagram Person (TM) is part of why I started doing it. I’m on the go a lot these days, and it seemed like a good way to keep reminding people I know in the real world that I’m still alive. Plus, it cross-posts to Facebook? Even better! My extended family will still know I exist and I don’t have to scroll through my timeline there. A blessing.
Anyway, the Out And Abouts have become a semi-hit, and the constant subject of questions and comments. With that in mind, I’m going to try to doing a bit of a written attachment every Monday. With that said, today is obviously Tuesday, so I’m already starting off sloppy, but we’ll attach to a special secondary Out and About this time around.
I’ve spent most of the last two days at Rogers Stadium, a venue that has impressively managed to find itself more polarizing than the band that occupied it for the past few nights. Much has been made about the temporary arrangement at Downsview Park, which effectively places a mass array of scaffolding in the middle of a retired airport runway. People who live close by say it’s too loud, while people who live far away complain about the lack of parking. Clearly, it’s a people-pleaser.
I live pretty close to the Stadium. Living in a high-rise with a northwest-facing view, I can actually see it from my balcony. When Coldplay came to town and I missed out on non-resale tickets, I grabbed a couple beers, found a reasonably-zippy TikTok stream, and watched the light and firework show from my balcony – it was like being in the 30,000th row, six kilometres away. I can’t hear the shows, but that’s likely a matter of sound not travelling high enough, as some have claimed that on a good night, it carries to distances further away than me.
Inside the venue, they’ve done a pretty good job of sorting out any initial kinks. Bathrooms were plentiful, if basic. Water refill stations were everywhere. Security was almost too easy to get through. Navigating both the floors and the stands were simple enough. There were lots of things to do before the show – I didn’t bother with the Ferris Wheel, but it looked neat, and my brother got a kick out of the arcade. Food was reasonably priced. Alcohol was not, but that’s pretty normal of any event venue these days.
Getting in and out has been the big story, and in that sense I’ll say it was imperfect, but slightly overblown. The crush-load is most evident at Downsview Park subway & GO station, which makes sense as it both supports two forms of transit, and is the closest of the three subway stations to the main gate. It’s still more than manageable walking in, though. Walking out, if you’re not taking the GO, I would consider walking towards Sheppard West Station (which lets you out near the military base on Sheppard & Yukon), or Wilson Station (which I didn’t take, but I believe pops you out near the Best Buy just east of Dufferin on Wilson).
Out-of-towners will gripe about the lack of parking, but if this area was already jammed now, just imagine how much worse it would be with tens of thousand of cars trying to exit the park. If you must drive most of the way in, I would park at Sheppard West station or Pioneer Village station, or a GO station along the Barrie line (which has more frequent service around the show’s end). On the first night, I walked up to Downsview Park station and it was a slow crawl out – though I wasn’t in a rush and spent some extra time helping people get to where they needed to go along the way home, so that was fine. On the second, we took the Sheppard West route, and it was a breeze.
If you’ve got floor tickets and intend on being as close as possible, I would strongly recommend going in through the main gate, which is the one closest to Downsview Park. A friend of mine went through the gate closest to the rideshare area at 4:30 on Sunday and was given a second-tier wristband. I went in through the main gate a little after 5:30 and got the top-tier. Most of the top-tiers, given to about 5000 people, are assigned to the main gate.
Onto the actual shows. To the surprise of no one who knows me on any sort of personal level, I was was there for Oasis. They were the first band I got into growing up, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? was the first album i ever purchased, and to this day, they’re still my favourite band of all time. Their first three albums (yes, Be Here Now included) and b-side compilation The Masterplan (do kids today know what a b-side is/was?) are all among my favourites of all time.
The band broke up many times for moments, but finally for the long haul in 2009, meaning that most in my age group – old enough to have their peak era in our early childhood memories, but too young to fully embrace it, didn’t get to see them live. I managed to be the exception to this, seeing them (along with a very, very young Arctic Monkeys) at the Air Canada Centre (now Scotiabank Arena) in 2006.
When you’re fourteen, at your first concert, and your favourite band is on stage, you’re obviously going to think it’s an amazing time no matter what. In hindsight, as you can hear above, it was an objectively bad showing on their part. Most of their tour was at this point – it was probably their rock bottom from a performance stand point. Liam Gallagher’s vocals were shot, both a result of a chronic throat condition and a total lack of maintenance or care for professionalism. Noel Gallagher wasn’t quite in the same spot, but there wasn’t a lot of enthusiasm put into the guitar work. Zack Starkey probably wasn’t the right drummer for the role. I was happy to say I’d seen them, but it was a pretty lousy time to only see them once. I’ve seen Noel a few times with his High Flying Birds solo band since, and those shows were great in their own way, but they don’t scratch the same itch.
So when the reunion was announced – brothers reconciled, and Liam sounding through his solo career like he was taking his job seriously, there was excitement and optimism, along with a lot of pressure. Could Liam sustain his voice? Could Noel go back to being a lead guitarist? Which returning members of the past would join them? Who would drum? Would anyone, particularly in North America where they’ve never quite been as popular as in the UK, Europe, South America and Asia, care enough to see them – especially in cases like Toronto, where the stadium they were playing in wasn’t even announced when the dates had leaked?
The answers were yes, yes, most of them, someone new but very good, and yes. The latter was particularly annoying for me, as I wanted to see them both nights, but found myself 60,000th in line for Night 1. Thankfully, I secured Night 2 tickets in the North Stands for me and some of my family, and justified that as good enough barring some good fortune.
This past Friday, I managed to snag a face value, single floor ticket for Night 1 during the production seat re-release, pivoting my plans to rush straight from our Royals preseason game deep in Markham to a quick flip home to the stadium.
It was more than worth it. As said above, I got there early enough to secure a great spot, about 10-15 rows of people away from the stage – close enough to get an incredible view, far enough to not be crushed at the rail. I met up with a friend who was also there, which was great for being able to rotate bathroom breaks and water refills until the show started.
Cage The Elephant put on a solid opening show – I’m not a massive fan, but I do enjoy them. There’s also a wonderful juxtaposition between Matt Shultz’s borderline gymnastics behind the microphone, and Liam’s ability to command a stadium by just standing there and leaning back. I’m guessing bringing Cage in was more about getting a band big enough to sell a few extra North American seats, but not big enough to spoil the surprise. I would’ve loved to have seen Cast and Richard Ashcroft like the UK & Ireland did, but this suited the location well.
Once Oasis came on, with their now trademark entrance of Noel & Liam holding hands and hugging (a huge juxtaposition to 20-30) years ago, it was all gas, no breaks, with the crowd as into it as any show I’ve ever been to. On the floor, every song was a singalong, not just the ones you’d expect. Enough people had paid attention to carry the Poznan jump over from the UK/Ireland shows when Cigarettes and Alcohol came on. It started raining during Stand by Me, which almost felt manufactured in its timing, but proved very real as it got worse. Everyone feared the possibility, but it ended up adding to the show – the band joked around about it throughout the night, with Liam eventually stacking up to two bucket hats and a hood on top, and hearing Live Forever up close in the literal pouring rain is something I don’t know that I’ll ever forget. The show capped off with a two and a half minute firework performance at the end of Champagne Supernova, which features a solo from Noel that no one would’ve expected from him based on his last few years of work.
Night two was largely the same from a performance standpoint – no rain meant more jokes from Liam about mushrooms and weed (he must’ve passed by a dispensary or twenty along the way) and lumberjacks, but the setlist was the exact same as it has been all tour, loaded mostly with the pre-1997 tracks that people know the most. Someone who nerds out about their discography like me would’ve appreciated variety, but I also appreciated the maximum potential for a singalong, and the fact they mixed in some heavier tracks like Fade Away and Bring It On Down to show those who came for their singalong singles that they’re more than their most poppy work. Not to discount said work – The Masterplan, Don’t Look Back In Anger, Wonderwall and Champagne Supernova is one of the best encore quadrants that any band could possibly put out.
Where the second night stood out for me was having my brother and cousins, all fans, all several years younger than me, around to get to experience them for the first time, not having to settle for the past-their-prime version of the band that I did in 2006 but getting the second-coming version we’re getting today. Yeah, the North Stands are quite a bit further away than the front of the floor, but it was just as special being with them. A lot of the crowd, in fact, was on the younger side – a testament to the resurgence that the streaming era has given them and the mystique that their rather quiet reunion rollout built up. They’re also one of the only true stadium rock bands going right now – again, something that seems wild to say when they were an empty shell of themselves twenty years ago. Having been the kid in the crowd in the past, that was really cool to see.
Newspapers in the UK have been writing about “post Oasis depression” in recent weeks, as crowds there now have less to look forward to with them having set sails. After looking forward to this for the past 11 months, will I feel the same in the next couple weeks? We’ll see. But it was a pretty surreal experience to see them again, and check out this crazy new venue while it’s getting its legs under it. Hopefully this reunion isn’t a farewell and we get another chance at this sooner than later.
Check back next week for what will probably be a less interesting out and about, but we’ll see where the next few days take us.
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