Paul Simon/Sting review required some tantric note taking

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      You force the music section to choose between Eddie Lack and Jacob Markström and we reward you with a Payback Time T-shirt and two tickets to a Live Nation club show of your choice taking place in Vancouver within the next four weeks. Here’s this week’s winning whinge.

      Dear Payback Time: What a relief that Steve Newton remembered to bring a pencil and paper with him to the Paul Simon/Sting show. If not, he wouldn’t have had anything to write about! Just a heads-up: the long-winded recount of a set list doesn’t constitute a great review. Where was the tantric? The old-time scuffles at the concession stand? Isn’t Simon using a walker yet? And maybe instead of reminding us that you’ve never heard Johnny Cash’s cover of “I Hung My Head”, you could actually listen to it and tell us what you think. Because while we love to read about what you didn’t do, we’d rather read about what you did do. Review a show, for instance. Thanks.

      > Tim Garner

      Steve Newton replies: Dearest Tim—Pencil and paper? Geez, I shoulda known you were old as hell. Listen, Chucklebunch, get with the program—nowadays, us hip and happenin’ music journos frown on anything as antiquated as the old p ’n’ p combo. Taking long-winded notes in a dark concert venue with the Tim Garner–approved pencil and paper is a major hassle, so we trendy types use the Notes feature on our brightly lit iPhones instead.

      Also, I believe I did mention the all-important “tantric” in my online review at Straight.com, but I had to carve 200 words out of that long-winded write-up to make it fit into the print version, so the brilliant tantric reference I spent all night devising had to go. It was either that or cut some of the long-winded set-list recounting, and there was no way I was gonna let that happen. For over 30 years, dedicated readers of the Georgia Straight have relied on me to provide them with the most long-winded set-list recounting in the business, and I’m not about to start letting them down now.

      You can voice your impotent rage by snail mail or by sending an email to payback@straight.com.

      Comments

      2 Comments

      Justice Squire

      Mar 4, 2014 at 8:21pm

      Quit beating on the Newt. Of all the hacks on the staff of the Strait he is the least deserving of abuse. Save the vitriol for Usinger.

      A. MacInnis

      Mar 4, 2014 at 11:28pm

      Or me!