Raine Maida, not quite a God, but better than me…maybe even you.
I am officially approximately 60 hours away from witnessing my hero in action, Raine Maida. While I have many influences in my life, both living and deceased, Raine Maida is the one that I have followed since the early days. Sadly, I am not old enough to have gotten in on the ground floor of earth shattering artists like The Beatles, Zep, The Who, etc. I have been lucky enough to have gotten in early on OLP. Dating all the way back to Naveed I have been with the band, following their careers for a small US following, gaining some momentum with Clumsy and Happiness…, and finally their pinnacle, Gravity and their singles “Somewhere Out There” and “Innocent”. Being there from Naveed
has allowed me to watch a few guys from Canada grow and evolve into a hard working, dedicated, passionate group of men who will put everything they have and then some into each new album. Their work has to speak to them before they will allow it to have a conversation with the public. They are a breath of fresh air from these power pop, mop-haired, melodic groups, rappers who don’t actually rap but just repeat two words and a grunt or two and handing a pretty blond a guitar and vocal lessons, putting her on some crappy MTV show and forcing her down the public’s resisting throats until we just give up and digest it just to get her fifteen minutes out of the way and we can all move on to the next one. Not that those bands are bad, because not all of them are. OLP has just been a band that I could relate to, with songs that I have always dug, and understood. Then Raine decides to get into this Spoken Word, poetry slam type of music and releases a solo album The Hunter’s Lullaby which is a FANTASTIC album. I cannot wait to see him Saturday, especially at a small venue like St. Andrews Hall. This will be a momentous occasion for me, and can’t wait to see how this changes my life, or at least effects my music.
Making 8:25 am count,
J
