Mad Caddies - Live In Toronto: Songs In The Key Of Eh (2)

Reviewed on Oct 8, 2005 by Tom

Where the heck is the cartoon-esque lyric sheet that comes with those Live In A Dive series? Oh wait … it’s not part of the LIAD series at all. That’s a bit weird innit? It either proves that the Mad Caddies have a lot of leverage in the house of Fat Wreck or well … that all is not quite as it should be in the end. It is a bit weird, and weirder still because no-one seems to be willing to clear this one up. Your guess is as good as mine but I’m suspecting it has to do with the blatant use of pro-tools to make it “sound better”.

Anyways, these guys vouched not to tour Europe again before they had some new material but I guess the touring-bug, being the nasty little fucker that it is, got to them anyways. So what do you do if the whole promotional system requires you to have new material before it can go out and justify another tour? In the case of the Mad Caddies you simply record one of your live performances (there’s really not that much difference on Cd and Live anyways) and get on with it. Any excuse is good to be able to tour now ain’t it?

”Live From Toronto: Songs In The Key Of Eh” is a 56 minutes and 48 seconds lasting thrill-ride through the marvels of Mad Caddie land, featuring songs that span most of their oeuvres, but forgetting to include something from “The Holiday Has Been cancelled” EP. I never understood why they don’t include songs off that little marvel in live settings because it is one of my personal favourites. But once again the Mad Caddies prove to be the ultimate party-band. It’s near perfection in all aspects and the classics just keep piling up, though there are certainly a few missing like “Goleta”, “Polyester Khakis”, “No Sé”, “Econoline”, “aPathetic”… Then again, almost each and every one of their tracks can be considered a classic so it might be a bit unfair to want them all on here and I still think their earlier stuff is their best so it’s only natural that I regret that there are so little of them on display. All in all though it’s a pretty mixed bag, allowing you to rock out on their much celebrated brand of Pirate-core (“Weird Beard”, “All American Badass”), or relaxing on the reggae-dub grooves of tracks the likes of “10 West”, “Drinking For 11” and “Days Away”, that is beautifully merged to one song with “Popcorn” and “The Bell Tower” here. In fact, that is the one thing I so like about this record. It captures those little changes the Caddies make in their songs so you can fully enjoy, savour and cherish them instead of trying to burn those quickly fleeting moments in your memory during their live-set, which is near to mission-impossible really. But like usual it’s those crazy caddy songs like “No Hope”, “Monkeys” and “Preppie Girl” that really get the crowd fired up and make me want to get my ass off of this chair, take it in my arms as a dance-partner and just swing away in my bedroom. Ahem. You get the picture.

Like usual my only objection is again that at times it sounds too slick. Then again it is Angus Cooke at the helm so that was to be expected and I’m not going to waste too much words on it this time round because it is really one heck of an album, with one fact that really annoyed me being that the crowd seems to be almost non-existant while they play their songs, as if they where excluded from the final mix during the songs themselves, and even in-between songs they sound distant, almost artificial. Of course, that’s a minor thing and won’t stop anyone from fully enjoying this one.

While this certainly is one of the best Live albums I’ve heard in a while, it misses that little spark that comes with a real live performance. And there’s nothing that can beat the smell of musk, sweat and other unruly substances in any moist live environment, though this one will give you amp excuse to re-live your favourite crazy caddy moments, and if you can’t make it to one of their shows you can still put this one into your CD player, crank up the volume to max and turn your living room into a booty-shaking dancefloor as if by magic. Because if I had to choose one word to describe the Mad Caddies it would be just that: magic. Of course, if you are a fan of the band you’d already be on your way this very instant to hand this little gem to yourself, for no particular reason at all, but simply because you can, and must for that matter!

Album Information

Best Song:No Hope
Medium/Type:Full-Length
Released:September 21st, 2004
Record Label:Fat Wreck Chords

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Tracklisting

  1. Intro
  2. Macho nachos
  3. 10 West
  4. Leavin
  5. Weird beard
  6. No hope
  7. Contraband
  8. Monkeys
  9. Days Away/The Bell Tower/Popcorn/Days Away
  10. The gentleman
  11. Villains
  12. Last breath
  13. Mary melody
  14. Drinking for 11
  15. Preppy girl
  16. Secret song
  17. Road rash
  18. Silence
  19. All american bad ass