What It’s *Really* Like To Play Massey Hall
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Oh, where do we start? I'm looking out my window right now. Oh, welcome everyone. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. I'm here with Caitlin Green, Adam Karsh. They are in their respective homes in Toronto. I am in Springbank, Alberta, as always. Well, not as always, but I'm looking out the window when it's snowing. Yesterday it was plus 11. So welcome to the ever-changing world we live in. And man, that goes for everything. In Alberta, the mandates are gone.

So they, we're pre-recording this show today, folks, because we've all got, trying to get three people together is always really challenging. But as of yesterday, no mandates here. My friend went into a coffee shop. So they started midnight on the 1st of March. So he went into a coffee shop, could be Starbucks. Welcome, welcome to sponsorship, Starbucks. You can, we're still available. And,

He said it was the coolest thing in the world. He said everybody had their masks on. Oh, so you're saying the mask mandate's been removed there. It's been removed. Yeah. All the mandates are removed. There's no mandates. You can go into restaurants. There's no passports here. There's no, none of that. It's gone. So think pre-2020 of January. Mm-hmm.

But he just said he went in there and people have taken it upon themselves and everyone in there had masks on. The staff, the patrons, everyone was like, good morning, good morning. It was pretty cool. I think it's going to be a mixed bag of, you know, the only thing I'm hoping for, and we'll see, you obviously, number one, hope that we don't have a case like they did in Denmark where they removed all the things and then their cases skyrocketed.

So you hope that doesn't happen. So in the land of make-believe where there isn't a wild uptick in cases, it would be nice if we just had everyone stop yelling at each other so much. And if that means that you are mostly going to wear a mask when you're out, great. If that means you're one of the people that doesn't and our numbers stay low, also fine. So I just am interested to see what happens. And again, I'm saying this by adding in the asterisks of, I hope it's not like Denmark. Because a lot of people are thinking it's going to be.

That's the concern. In Ontario, we dropped the vaccine mandate, like the proof of vaccination for non-essential places. So it's still there in healthcare settings. It's still there for long-term care, no longer there for restaurants. Masks are in place and I think they'll probably make some changes to that at some point in the near future. I just think that the

The inconsistency in messaging regarding showing proof of vaccination and also where to have masks and where to reduce numbers and where not to reduce numbers, that has made people just disregard or feel frustrated with everything altogether. And so I feel like they kind of have to

have a unified front more often than not. And if that means it's up to the individual on all things, then fine. And if it doesn't mean that, then, you know, go back to the way things were. But when we look at the possibility, I saw someone tweeting about this. She was an obstetrician and she said the cognitive dissonance of seeing thousands of people gathered to go to a Leafs game and then having partners not able to attend ultrasounds with their, you know, pregnant partners is overwhelming to people. Yeah.

So that's the optics aren't great. Now wrap it up, like figure it out, let people go do things or, or don't, but don't, don't, you know, say, Oh, you're not going to be able to come to an ultrasound, but Hey, 10,000 of you can go to a lease game. Like it doesn't make any sense. Well, I think from the beginning, um, small business owners were watching people funnel into Walmart and Costco, big box stores, things that were considered, you know, that people had to absolutely get in those doors and get stuff. Um,

And meanwhile, you know, people that could have controlled the environment in a much healthier way, I think, by allowing three patrons in the store or five patrons in the store, everybody masked. Even a small store of 400 square feet could have easily controlled

accommodated a couple of people in there and made some sales and certainly not have to have been shut down. I think there's been so many mistakes made and I'm certainly not going to sit here and say, well, if I was the person doing this, I'd sure get in there. You know, I was at a loss. I think what has really left its mark on all of us is the contention, is the divisiveness, is the fighting, is the arguing about facts and figures and,

science denial and it's just been this constant we could have spent every single podcast that we did this past couple of years talking about the frustrations how do you guys and Adam I want to ask you this you have two little girls and you've been working from home how have you

Like, how do you explain it to your kids? You must have had lots of questions. I think, God, every day that I have no children. And I say that with a broken heart because I just, I didn't have any children. But I don't have to deal with that. I didn't have to deal with having to tell little... How old are your kids now? Seven and nine or no? Eight and ten. I was very close. You were very close. They're... And...

I mean, it's different for all of us, but what did you tell them when this started? How has that conversation been going forward? I think they just...

accepted it. I'm not saying they liked it, but I think they just accepted it and played by the rules and understood they had to wear masks or they they they didn't like the fact that we had to pull back on playdates and sleepovers and dinners inside with the family and like programs canceled camp canceled. I mean, there were a lot of tears in this house when we told the

them that they couldn't go to camp. But that was two summers ago. So it's better now. And with things the way they are today, we're starting to integrate back into doing normal things like dinners inside again with family. My daughter had a cheer competition last week. I was in an arena for the first time in two years and it wasn't packed and people were respectful. Well, that's what Caitlin was saying too is

Yeah. We're seeing those kinds of activities and yet an ultrasound with your partner would have been out of the question or being beside your loved one as they have, you know, they're suffering, excuse me, medical issues.

or even end-of-life stuff where people were denied going in to see their loved one. I mean, it all seems so ludicrous. Doesn't make sense. I don't know. I guess history is going to be the only kind of fair... I mean, some people would disagree, but usually when we get a chance to look back, you do have a much clearer sight line of what unfolded. And there was a lot of mistakes made. I don't know what we would have compared it to,

I mean, and the lunatics that are out there comparing it to the Second World War and the Nazis and the Jewish people. That has probably been the most outrageous comparison that people just don't.

get it, what they're saying. They don't understand even what's falling out of their mouths. I'm one of those people that don't get offended by anything. But as a Jewish person, when I hear people making comparisons to the Holocaust, don't do that. That's really offensive and it's totally out of line.

Yeah, and the other thing I thought was interesting, so because of everything that's been going on in Ukraine and Russia, so social media companies have really been clamping down on misinformation and on those Russian bot farms. They've been trying to control them a little bit more, reduce their exposure because they're spreading a lot of misinformation about the invasion happening there right now. So as a result, when all of this stuff started popping up in Ukraine, the Russian bots changed their focus from vaccine misinformation to...

oh, let's go over here and start spreading around misinformation about what's happening in Ukraine. So as a result, I'd also like everyone to add in little asterisks that a lot of the crap you see and the horrible things that are being said online are being done by a small group of people. And it's an orchestrated attack.

it's an orchestrated attack on common sense and on logic and on truth. And it's being run by these bot farms. And a lot of them are Russian, truthfully. It's, you know, you can see it happen because when they shut it down, all the vaccine bots disappeared and they refocused their energy somewhere else because that's what it is, a campaign. The whole thing has been awful. I've actually suffered my first really personal casualty as far as the friendship stuff goes. A friend of mine that I've known for 30 years

was very vocal about pro-convoy stuff and the vaccinations and the science and it's just the flu. And I honestly, it wore me out the last couple of years. I really tried to hang in there. This is a person that I really love. I don't even know what people would tell me. I don't even know what advice you guys would offer me, but I've just cut it off now.

I've made like legal things because this person was on my trust and end of life decisions. Oh, geez. That's inner circle. I'm sorry. That's really sad. I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah. It's the first thing I've experienced. I've certainly had conversations and debates and a couple of little heated arguments about how stuff is unfolding and

But this just got to the point where it was affecting my mental health and it was exhausting me thinking about it. And I thought, I'm not just going to back up. And I'm not saying that at some point we can't have a conversation, but right now,

you know, I guess there's heels dug in on both sides of the fence because I'm just not going to go, oh, that's okay. Because I don't think it's okay. I just don't, especially with what's going on right now, people fighting for their lives. There was a woman on the news this morning. I just burst out crying because it was, the journalist was asking her, you know, where she'd come from and

She had two little kids. They had their little Disney backpacks on. Oh, my God. And they had to leave. I think they brought a dog with them and they literally couldn't catch the cats. She said they're outdoor cats. There was a lot of missiles and horns. And she said that they were freaked out from the noise.

And we couldn't get them. Yes. This is in Ukraine, like crossing the border. Sorry. Yes. They couldn't get them. And this was four or five days ago. And of course the kids are not only distraught about their family pets, but she said, you know, at least we managed to get the dog and, and we've been walking and catching rides with neighbors, but just to talk about personal freedoms. And I know this conversation has been going on a lot. Yeah. Um,

In comparisons, in Calgary on the weekend, they had a pretty big thousand people, 900, you know, a thousand people going down 17th Avenue talking about their freedoms. You're listening to the Jen Arden podcast. We're going to keep talking about this, I think, for another segment. We'll be right back.

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Caitlin, once again in the break, we're chatting away, so I'll just let you take it from there because I want people to hear what you're going to say. Oh, Adam was talking about social media. Yes. Just because we were saying, you know, the amount of coordinated misinformation that's spread on social media. I think it does really trick people and they believe, oh, there's so many other people that think this weird thing I do and they're

probably are. I mean, there is so many people in the world, but you have to understand that, you know, it preys on the fears you have in your mind and it becomes this echo chamber of fear and of anger and of dissent and a departure from logic. And once these farms see that this is

inciting chaos in countries that perhaps they want to incite chaos in, in segments of the population that they want to incite chaos in, then they really go for it. And it is a coordinated effort. I would encourage anyone to look into this a little bit further because it's very real. And so when they change their tactics to something like attacking the validity of science, they

the rest of the world is sitting here going, oh, and it turns people off of social media in general, unfortunately, when there's a lot of good stuff that can be done on social as well. There are a lot of people who are, I mean, the amount of money I've seen raised to support Ukraine right now is overwhelming. I mean, people who just started at home selling t-shirts and merchandise and flags. I mean, there's an account that I follow on Instagram that's in Canada and they've raised over $650,000 in a little under two weeks. And,

And so a lot of good can be done. And I don't want to kind of, you know, always, always know there's, there's so much good and there's more good than there is bad. But you know, the problem is, and I was thinking to myself, are these marches, these, these anti-vaccine anti-mandate marches. And now they're saying it's not even about the mandates or the vaccines anymore. That's,

So the narrative of that has changed. Now they're saying they just want Trudeau to resign, that he's a traitor. So I'm thinking now that all these mandates have been dropped here, so we're basically back to everything is normal in Alberta. I think in medical places, there's a few places that still require masking, but that is it. It's full capacity in venues. So this Saturday, which is you're listening to this today on Saturday,

Are they going to be marching today? And for what? Are they going to be meeting? Because now they've got something. They've got a group of like-minded people.

I had to laugh because they were reporting that there was 17,000 of them. There wasn't 17,000. There was 900. But for all those people that are at home, my mother would have said, well, the paper said 17,000 or whoever. And, I mean, just as a small example, people do believe what they read. I mean, the New York Times made this huge statement about, you know, Trudeau when he enacted the Emergency Act, you know, Act.

And they retracted it afterwards. But this was the New York Times. So, you know, the millions and millions of people that are reading this paper when, you know, the liberal government had to enact something to clear a bridge that was clearly screwing up

millions and millions of dollars of trade between these two countries, something had to be done. They couldn't sit there for another six months. And they needed resources. So when you have the New York Times, a big reputable paper doing this, and I saw so many people that are going, I'm canceling my subscription. I saw that too. I mean, yeah, and I think Canada has been

by our U.S. counterparts generally, kind of a poorly understood place. I don't really think they get the nuances. I think that everyone has, a lot of people have a very reductive view of Canadian culture and Canadian people. So I wasn't terribly surprised myself being a little bit cynical that the New York Times messed it up. But it is disappointing.

And it's hard to know what the heck's going on all the time. So I don't blame people now who just say, I have lots of friends who say, I'm staying away from the news. Or I only read the following three sources. Or I don't read the news after dark, which is something I might soon adopt. Because it's overwhelming and your circle of control in life is very small. And so I don't think it serves anyone's purpose to feel overwhelmed.

like you're floating around and overwhelmed. I think you can make yourself sick with it. I think you can make yourself sick with it. Absolutely. And that's what we're seeing. And I think that there's a, the pandemic, what it did was it separated people. It made them isolated, made small business owners frustrated. The difference in rules that the government just said here and there and over and here. And I'm not saying federal government, I'm saying all levels of government and I'm saying every party, um,

So the inconsistency has made people really angry. And that's the number one thing you're seeing is people are angry, they're disillusioned, and they found other people who were also angry and disillusioned, and they found a sense of community and they stuck together. And that's human behavior 101. So I don't understand why so many of our leaders refuse to respond to this for so long. And again, I'm saying on every single level and in every party.

They just said, uh, uh, uh. And you're like, if you're a regular person, I'm looking around. All I have to do is look at my friends and my social media. And I'm like, guys, it's getting bad out there. People are ticked. They're losing their shirts off their back. They can't get the hospital treatment that they deserve. Their surgeries are being postponed enough. You have to change course here in some way, shape or form and start actually reflecting what people are saying. That was the only part of people's...

anger that I got. I would never express it that way. I would never disrupt people's lives and trade and everything else. I would never do that. But scaring people to intimidating people. And no, it wasn't all of them. I got a DM a couple of weeks ago, kind of in the middle of the protests, whatever you want to call them.

Um, and this woman said to me, she goes, I was listening to your podcast and she goes, you guys don't do a fair, um, you don't give us fair time. You don't give us equal time. Um, you know, the, the truck convoy, I didn't, I just, I didn't write her back. I didn't even say anything, but I'm just thinking, ma'am, if you're listening today, you know who you are.

Fair time. For one thing, it's my name on this podcast and there wasn't anything positive that I can say came out of whatever it is that you guys were doing. You know, the people that I know were scared, intimidated, just frustrated.

just their freedoms were totally overlooked and undermined. And that's not what freedom is. It's just not for a handful of people to go block a bridge and going, we're going to stay here until we get this. But I was surprised that they actually thought that this was some kind of a forum to sit here and say, oh, but here's something good today, folks, that came out of...

intimidating people and, you know, blowing your horns 40 hours a day. And also I don't feel like I've ever, I'm like, I am frustrated too. P.S. This stuff drives me mad. I really does bother me. So, and I'm not one of these people who says, oh, I just, I just love this one party and I'm going to stick with them forever. If you have a great platform, present it.

And I'm happy to go any which way politically. But I just felt that, you know, you can people can only tolerate so much for so long. I don't approve of how you know, I don't I don't approve of disrupting civil order for that length of time. But I do think that to a certain extent, protest is supposed to be annoying. And I do. But I, I really, I really feel like people had just had it already.

all together. So I wasn't surprised on a philosophical larger level. I'm like, I'm not surprised. I saw this one coming. It's the same way that I felt about, you know, you lead up to any major movement where you're like the center of this is people are fed up with something. So protests can also be, you know, exhilarating, uh, watching, uh,

people stand up for the Ukrainian, for Ukraine this past, you know, 10 days, especially in Russia, the tens of thousands of people that are risking life and limb to go and protest the war on Ukraine and that they don't want it. And that they, I mean, they were trying to arrest them as quickly as they could, but you can't clear tens of thousands of people off the street. So it can also be

This clear voice that permeates really bad things and bad decision making. Because in a democracy, which Russia is not, it was interesting to see people exercise a democratic, you know, yeah, they vote for the president, right?

But really, do they? Putin just decided that he was going to be back in there again. And that's what happened. He came back from what was it, a decade of being away from it? I'm back.

I've decided that I really like the control and I want to be here anyway. It's the same thing that always happens where you have, you know, 99% of the world wants to live their life peacefully and enjoy their time with their family and have a meaningful career. All those things are fairly universal. And then the 1%, that nagging 1%, tends to try to really jam us up all the time. And that's what you're seeing happen right now. I went to the march in Toronto to support Ukraine and it was amazing.

It was so great. It was cold and it was snowy, but everybody was there. John Tory made a great speech. There was just, it was a nice feeling. It was a feeling of kind of, you know, togetherness. And you just thought, yeah, okay. Everyone here is equally as upset by this and doesn't want it to continue. Yeah. Well, Saturday was the anti-

upside down Canadian flags. It'll be a long, long time before I'll be flying a Canadian flag anywhere in my property because now the messaging for me is very, I don't want someone to drive by my property and see a flag going and think that I support that. And that's been a really sad thing for me too is it's just not, doesn't feel like my flag right now. You're listening to the Jen Ard Podcast. We'll be right back. Welcome back.

I don't know if we'll get sued for using the welcome back Cotter four notes from that. Is that what that was? Adele continues to have some blowback to everything that's been going on since the very abrupt cancellation of her residency weekends with Adele in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was going to take place at Caesar's Palace. A lot of preparation going

Apparently she had the floor replaced a number of times. That comes from a very credible source that I know personally. Working on the show itself, lots of lighting changes, firing people, hiring people, kind of blaming COVID. But whatever it came down to, it was done very poorly, left thousands and thousands of people on the lurch for plane tickets, hotel accommodations, and the tickets themselves, which...

Some of them were running up towards tens of thousands of dollars, and I'm not kidding you. Anyway, now, Caitlin, fill us in on the continuing woes of Adele. What's Adele's last name, by the way? Does anyone know? Oh, I should know that. At one point in time, I could have told you. I've since forgotten because she's become one of those single-name artists. Is it Jones? Smith? I don't know. Adele Laurie Blue Adkins. Yes.

I knew it. Dang it. I knew Adele Adkins. Okay. Thank you. Wikipedia. Well, Miss Adkins, Miss Adkins is having more problems. Well, she's okay. So there's a thing she's, well, she is still having the ongoing problems, but like tabloids can never make up their mind. So initially everyone said, Oh, you know what it is. It's that Adele and her boyfriend, Rich Paul are fighting. And that's why that no. And,

And then she showed up to the Brit Awards wearing a big diamond ring and everyone goes, oh, well, actually she's engaged. And then she went on the Graham Norton show. She wouldn't confirm it because, of course, why would she? But she seemed to indicate that, you know, if she wanted to have a family or expand her family, I should say, because she already has a son. So if she wanted to expand her family, you know, she she had to really get these Vegas shows underway because she was only going to be able to, you know, kind of put off family planning for so long.

That's not someone who's having problems in their relationship. So now that the tabloids have decided to put her back through the ringer, they're saying, Oh, well, what it really is is her relationship with rich Paul was going too well and that it's distracting her from her gigs in Vegas and

And I just thought, I guess we care. Do we care? Oh, I mean, I do not care. Absolutely not. But is there a male artist who would ever be put through this? Like who'd ever have a relationship like casting aspersions on their entire career the way it does for, you know. How many children does Drake have? One. And his name is Adonis. That we know about, right? Yeah. I mean, I think it's just the one. I'm still trying to get over the condom and the sperm and the,

That's an internet rumor, but yes, it was alarming. It was alarming. It was an internet rumor. As all get out. Google that yourself if you're listening because I don't want to explain it. Google Drake saving condom to...

No, he wasn't doing it. Anyway, but it's good to have rumors on this show because we really want to increase our listenership. But I just think, you know, as an art, you're an artist, you're a musician, you know, do you like, I don't think, I don't know too many male artists. I've never presented myself that way. And I've never let people have that line of questioning with me. I mean, I'm well past that age. I mean, I'm almost 60 years old, but, um, I mean, there's just, there's so many, um,

There's so many problems with that, Caitlin. And I totally get it of trying to plan your career around children. No male artists would never face that. Julio Iglesias or anybody else, Dean Martin, anybody they would have had who their wives got pregnant. Those guys didn't even go to the hospital. I remember saying to mom, was dad there when I was born? Are you kidding me? What?

even know where he was. He wasn't anywhere near the hospital. I'm like, God, really? No, he didn't want to go there. Really? Really? But just for folks out there too, now they're seriously talking about having to change the venue at Caesar's Palace, which causes a whole litany of problems. And so we'll start with just the seating to begin with. So if you went on to

to buy it, to go to Ticketmaster or if you went through their site or whatever. Eventually it's Ticketmaster. That's what happens. They control everything. And you bought row K seat 113 and you spent $725 US dollars for March the 26th. Okay. So now these shows get postponed. They get bumped to whenever. Now Caesar's Palace is saying that they don't have the space to put it where Adele wants it. They

They have, I think Sting is going in there. I think Rod Stewart is going back in there. There's a few things happening and it's huge staging things. It's not just plugging in the guitars and going. It's a lot.

These people are doing big shows because people are paying big tickets. But they're talking about Planet Hollywood, the theater there. They're talking about another theater. So these are much smaller theaters. So we're talking, we're talking, there is no row K seat 113. And so they, now they don't know what they're going to do and how they're going to honor people that have had tickets.

So those problems are going to get bigger. I still think it's not going to happen until 2023. That's just my opinion. But I don't know. I'm still... I just don't know how people get away with behaving like that and doing this professionally. I mean, it's one thing to cancel a show on your tour because you're really sick and you can't do it. But...

This is just hundreds of millions of dollars and so much moving of people. I think it's so disrespectful. I do. And, um,

Like for what I'm seeing with the Graham Norton show and just going to basketball games and doing her thing or whatever, yeah, a person has to live her life. But, you know, the teary response to everybody on Instagram and on the socials of, I'm just not ready. I can't do it. Well, you can do everything else. I

I, you can sure go to basketball game and have fun and, you know, throw your head back with your ring and, and talk about, you know, planning a family. But I just, I find it disrespectful and it still makes me mad. Yeah. And you're, you are a musician and you were a ticket holder.

I didn't even get a ticket. So I was like, that was that offset, I guess some of my investment, but yeah, you had, you were, you were supposed to go to the show. I wonder if it's going to happen this year too. It's such a strange time for any sort of live tour to be announced. Cause like, I'm supposed to be going to see Elton John in September. Um,

And I just don't... I went to his final farewell tour 10 years ago. So good for you. It's still going. I'm getting the continuing farewell tour. And he was supposed to play here in Toronto in February and then just canceled the dates altogether. I think he had hip surgery or something. Anyway, so I don't know what's happening with that show because the millionth farewell tour, I don't think it's going to be happening. And I was supposed to go see one of my favorite bands, Tame Impala. That got canceled and then they rebooked it. And now I don't know if I feel cool to...

invest in tickets again. Tell me about the cancellation. Was it COVID? Yes, this was like COVID back a few months ago. And then I think, I don't know this, but I think a lot of groups have been eyeballing Canada and going, well, when are you going to change things up a little bit over there? Because it seems a bit intense. And so they kept announcing US tour dates and then nothing in Canada. So they finally re-announced in Canada and I just am still...

I've had so many shows canceled that I'm still skeptical about booking anything. Like I almost just feel I will just go and see if I can get tickets the night of, if it comes down to that. Well, I start touring May, sort of the second week of May, I start in the East. So I believe Moncton or Halifax is,

And we go till the first week of July. And obviously there's still tickets available because people are feeling exactly that. They're like, are they going to go on? And I will tell you right now, like there's nothing that will stop me from doing those. It's good news as far as

Alberta, for instance, all the mandates are lifting. I know Ontario, I know your premier is very much removing mandates and opening up restaurants. But I got to say, the numbers are still very high here. They're reporting 5,000 cases a day. They've stopped doing that kinds of testing. They're now testing the feces in the water. So that's always a good time that that's kind of how they have...

set the bar as far as infections. They have the entire time been testing sewage samples, and I guess they can get a pretty good indicator of how it is quite effective. I mean, there's science for you. They can find a lot out about poo. I will say that. There's just a lot to learn about poo. I remember they wanted to treat my dad with a fecal transplant when he had

a really, really serious intestinal infection. C. difficile? He had C. diff. Yeah, and so that's a good treatment for that. And he was, yeah, and thank God he recovered. He said this is the last, the doctor was like, this is the last antibiotic that's going to work. And the next thing is, is we're going to think about fecal transplant. And my dad basically said over his dead body. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. There's no end to the topics today. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to the Jan Arden Podcast. I'm sorry that we're taking you on a rollercoaster ride of things happening, but isn't this just how life feels? And I think we are all feeling on this

So many people are like, what is going to happen next? It feels like we were just coming out of COVID and there's so many funny memes of, yeah, made it through two years of a pandemic only to go into World War III. I know. And, you know, there's lots of that going on. But I think, and we're going to move on very quickly, but I think we're seeing...

I'm really actually quite proud of the world, the way the Western, the West has really joined together and put these sanctions, unheard of sanctions onto the Russian government. And, and hopefully this will resolve itself through diplomacy and through much more talks and that, you know, peace will be had. Fingers crossed, honestly. Finger, everything crossed. And, and certainly at the Jan show here, we're all,

You know, just heart sick. And we've talked about last week, we wanted to talk about this a little bit. And I think we all just felt a little trepidatious about going into it. So we wanted to break also, which I respect. I respect people wanting a break. I don't ever want to put my head in the sand and like live on a planet of fake news, but

Sometimes you want a break. And so that's why it feels, and that's why it feels good sometimes to just talk about Adele or gossip or reality TV or food because you're just like, you know. Who cares about Adele? Because I'm going to be playing Massey Hall in Toronto. Yes. I think it's, what's the dates? Is it the 18th and 19th? Did anyone look?

I'm looking right now online, and it says that it's May 24th and 25th. Oh, there you go. So I've put tickets aside for you, Caitlin, and I've put tickets aside for you, Adam. Amazing. This is free of charge. You're also going to each get a basket of cherry tomatoes. Okay. Complimentary. You can eat them in your seats. So Massey Hall has undergone a massive renovation over the last – Yes.

I want to say five years. Every time I walked by there, it was up in scaffolding, but they've redone like the stained glass panels that used to be there. Like everything that was boarded up. You never saw those stained glass panels for years. Well, apparently they're under all these bricks and crap. Anyway, new seats. Imagine them.

Imagine the people that have sat in those chairs over the last 127 years, I want to say. I love that venue. The late 1880s, I think, it was built. Yeah. I've only seen one show there. Who? What did you see there? For my 30th birthday, my parents got me tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld, and it was hilarious. He was amazing. Oh, my gosh. He's been one of the most frequent performers at Massey Hall ever.

He's listed as, I think he's up there with Gordon Lightfoot. He's in like the 30s or 40s or 50s. He's played a lot of Massey Hall shows, yep. Wow. Well, I know that there was removable main floor seating. That was like a feature that was included in the renovation. So previously... What does that mean? Standing room? Yeah, previously there was no option for general admission. And it's one of the few venues in the city, I think, that didn't have that option. And so now, if you want seated...

the entire venue to be seated, you can. But if you want to remove it, include general admission around the front. I will not be having general admission. I love sitting during the show. It's all seated. It's all seated. So yeah, I think I'm so excited. So thank you for these tickets. I'm thrilled to go. And also, you will be the first show that I will see at Massey Hall since the renovation. I'm trying to remember the last show I saw there. I think it was this

I don't know. I'm like, what did I see there? I think last, I think I saw a band called Warren drugs there last and, um, it was fabulous. And I was front row. And I do remember at that show wishing, you know, general admission kind of would have been cool right now. Yeah. And I think I agree with you. There's definitely shows that you would want to go and be close to the stage and stand there. And, but then I were, I mean, something like my show though, I don't think it's appropriate. I think if you're going to see matchbox 20 or like some rock and roll or, or I,

I don't know. I just don't think my kind of music, I should probably offer a laying down feature for my show. Maybe the general admission can be swapped out. There'll be 17 cots laid out in the general admission area for people that would like to just relax. Like a fainting sofa? Yeah, a fainting sofa. But it is going to be exciting. I just remember freezing my butt off in the dressing room and the carpeting, this indoor-outdoor carpeting.

You'd go in the stage door and come up this little flight of stairs and go back. And they had the radiators that had been painted about 45 times, a little sink that was always dripping. The toilet never seemed to flush properly. There was a radiator in the tiny little bathroom area.

I don't know. I have so many memories. I've played there so many times. Oh my gosh. And it's going to be really interesting to see what the dressing rooms look like. We always walk in and you always, for me, I always judge the venue by what my dressing room is going to be like. And I have spent much of my career like going, I think I got to get ready on the bus. I mean, I've played some terrible places. Yeah.

You go in and they've literally like left half of a mirror on the wall. And I'd say to Chris, where do you think the other half of the mirror is? And you're kind of looking at yourself kind of bending to – and it's not just –

broken in half like a straight line it's like a jagged thing that you would see in psycho in somebody's hand committing a grievous crime but just just in stinky and weird stains on the ceiling and we'd be looking up going why is there a pad of butter stuck on the ceiling of this room

So, and you'd go out on stage and your feet would stick like, you'd be sticking on the stage. And then thank God, you know, 10 years into my career, things basically started to turn around and I got to play in some pretty cool places, but yeah,

Yeah, dressing rooms. I can't wait. I can't wait to see what they've done. Artists always have said that Massey Hall was one of their, or maybe this was just lip service, but I honestly believed it many times when I saw someone play there. They'd walk out on stage and talk about how special the venue was. It's true. And is that how it feels when you're on stage there? Like you knew, like it was just different? It's the pinnacle. I think certainly every Canadian act that I've ever met was,

To get to Massey Hall and to sell the hall out, you feel like people are watching you from clouds. They surround you. It almost feels like they're over top of you, especially the way the seats were back in the day. I don't think they're going to change it. It's an intimate venue.

extremely intimate. And I just remember her arms hanging over the brass railings on the very top. And, and I would hear people yelling at me if I moved too much to the right of the stage or too much to the left, because it would affect their sight lines. And I'd hear these voices going, I can't see. So I never, I learned very much. Like I, as years went on, I would come out on stage and I'd say, I just want everyone to know

A lot of my choreography has been canceled tonight because I know if I do a lot of my splits over to the right there, you folks can't see me because they literally look down and I'm covered up by the lower tier of audience members. Yes. Yeah. So I have to stay in the sweet spot of the stage. So when I play there again, I'm, I'm sure that I'll be,

in the middle of the stage looking very much like a thumb with eyes and singing songs and you know it's gonna be is that it is that our show yeah one minute left the one minute mark parting words Caitlin take us home um

I don't know if I have any parting words other than I guess my last question for you would be when people yell stuff and you're on stage, can you mostly hear it or do they just sound like someone's self-immolated in the background? I can hear it now because we're all using in-ear monitors and,

And we actually have two shotgun mics that are to the right of me and to the left of me. And no one would even notice them, but they're pointed out into the audience. So when I'm singing, they're shut off. Because the last thing I want to know is like, well, she's way too fat to be wearing those pants. Like you don't want to hear things like that when you're singing.

But so they're shut off during the actual song. But as soon as I stop, the shotgun mics go on and I can pick up pretty much anything. My sound man dials in. So you would be amazed at what I can hear. You've been listening to the Jan Arden podcast. I'm here with Caitlin and Adam. This is all the time that we have. Please hit subscribe. Listen to us. Send us comments on the Jan Arden pod on Twitter.

And I promise you in the next month or so, we're going to have an Instagram page and it's going to be terribly informative. I don't know who's going to do it. Maybe me, maybe Adam's daughters. I don't know. Someone is going to. Poppy's going to do it. Thanks. Poppy's sitting here on my feet. Look after yourselves. The best is yet to come. This too will pass. Human beings have been through much, much pain.

Graver things than this and there's good people in the world making really sound decisions and they're working when you and I are laying in bed worrying our full heads off there are very

There's good people, moral people making decisions and trying to fix this and make it right for the Ukraine and for Ukraine. Sorry, I keep, I don't know. It's a terrible habit. The Adams keeps telling me to wrap it up. Thank you, Caitlin. Thank you, Adam. We'll see you next week. Bye, friends. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.