A couple of years ago, I was given tickets to see the Arkells at the Saddledome from my family. Delays brought on by COVID led to a months delay before the show finally took place, and it was awesome.
The only downside to the concert was that our seats were so far from the stage. Jeremy and I vowed that, when the Arkells come back, we’re getting on the floor.
And that we did.
The catch is that there’s no seats on the floor at an Arkells concert. Unlike other floor seating we’ve experienced (notably with the final Tragically Hip concert), there’s chairs. Arkells? They want you dancing. And it’s way easier to press in for a better look. But it does mean you need to be comfortable standing for hours, and you have nowhere to put a coat.
But if you know that going in, you’ll have a great time. We certainly did.
The opening band was a group called Poolside out of Los Angeles that played “modern disco”. Definitely not what I expected to hear, but really outstanding music. I often feel bad for opening bands that put in stellar shows for only a handful of people … but I also know that’s how they get the experience to play bigger and better shows.
We knew the Arkells were coming when the “Arkells Touring Band” sign was raised into position. While the album Arkells are their core members, they’ve been augmenting with a four-piece horn section for their roadshows, and that just makes it all the more awesome.
Better still, because the band doesn’t stay on the stage. Although they didn’t have the long extension of their previous show, they did have a little island, complete with payphone. (If you’re not familiar with the Arkells, they have a song called “Leather Jacket” that involves a payphone, the last one of which is “who the fuck uses a payphone”).
It was loud, it was in our faces, they had a camera floating around the audience capturing interactions (they got the camera back, too), they were filming parts of the show (whether for a documentary or just for social media, is unclear), they had audience participation, and their “fun” cover of the night was Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, which is older than most of the audience, but everyone seemed to know.
I need to put in a request for them to do (I Wanna Take You) Higher…
