THE REPLACEMENTS with IGGY & THE STOOGES, THE WEAKERTHANS, ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT, DINOSAUR JR. and more as part of RIOT FEST at Fort York Garrison Commons, Sunday, August 25. Rating: NNNN
“I owe you nothing.”
Those words were reportedly inscribed from the pen of Iggy Pop to a pair of fans who bugged him for an autograph a few years ago. But recounted by The Replacements’ Paul Westerberg onstage at Riot Fest Sunday night, they served as a slogan for the latter band’s headlining set.
Twenty-two years since the Replacements last live performance and 32 years to the day since the release of their debut album, Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, the second Toronto edition of the punk festival Riot Fest seemed an unlikely place for founding singer/guitarist Westerberg and bassist Tommy Stinson to reunite (alongside a couple of fill-in, replacement Replacements). That didn’t stop foreign media from crowding the photo pit, worldwide indie acolytes from ignoring Miley Cyrus’ VMA twerkfest to live vicariously through the #RiotFestTO hashtag, and young fans hoping the band they’d grown up obsessing over would live up to their legend.
Ironically, much of that legend relies on their rejection of the rock star script that leads to media-circus reunions many of their once-underground peers have engaged in over the last decade. But anyone who believed a Replacements show could be a Coachella-style cash grab was quickly undercut by Westerberg’s wry, smirking understatement.
“Hello,” he said, laughing. “For 25 years we’ve been having a wardrobe debate… unresolved. We’re going to play some old shit.” Then they were off, tearing into a typically loud and sloppy set, playing the surly self-saboteurs etched into music history. Westerberg forgot whole verses to favourites like I Will Dare, which most in attendance could sing in their sleep merged their own songs with piss-take covers of Jimi Hendrix and Chuck Berry and took requests, fumbling through a singalong version of the gender-bending love ballad Androgynous, despite their lack of piano (and later photo evidence that it was not on the set list).
Even their hilarious anti-banter stage banter undercut clichés like seasoned comedians: “Everyone put your hands… in your pockets” “Does everybody feel… uptight and worthless?”
Westerberg and Stinson’s no-big-deal shrug evoked a Minneapolis basement punk show, not a highly anticipated reunion.
As the band ripped through their set, Pop stood sidestage alongside Minutemen/Iggy & the Stooges bassist Mike Watt and Dinosaur Jr. guitar hero J Mascis (all of whom played earlier) – a living dramatic personae of seminal underground rock tomes.
There’s always been a raw, emotional core hiding under the Replacements’ loud and sloppy veneer, though they only offered glimpses of that between jokey punk tunes like Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out and late-period B-sides like Wake Up. But when they launched into undeniable classics like Bastards Of Young, audience members embraced, closed their eyes and belted out choruses with the collective, all-in-this-together satisfaction that only hearing an iconic song performed for the first time in over two decades can bring. Had they ended the night with a stately soul-bearing torch song like Unsatisfied or Here Comes A Regular, they might have justified the Guardian’s decision to send a reporter. But instead, Westerberg trolled the crowd by changing into a Habs jersey and leading his band through the Broadway show tune Everything’s Coming Up Roses and IOU – a song inspired by the Stooges, who actually set the stage for the Replacements, playing the pre-headlining set.
Prior reports suggested they were unhappy with the placement (the publicity contact for my interview with guitarist James Williamson stressed the importance of referring to the band as “co-headliners”), but surely Westerberg and Stinson would appreciate the irony. Pop’s bloody, fan-baiting antics formed the blueprint for the Replacements (and punk rock as a whole), even if they’re now much more willing to play the crowd-pleasing showmen the Replacements aren’t.
Over four decades since their first go-around, Pop is as leather-looking and spry as ever, bouncing around the stage and into the audience, howling like a banshee and inviting audience members to “fucking dance with the Stooges.” If not for the Replacements reunion, the Stooges would surely have grabbed most of the attention.
