For a minute on Friday the 13th (of April), I thought we were about to hear some new Grapes of Wrath stuff from the upcoming album they’re recording after TWO DECADES of…not recording.

But it was just some sort of Kevin Kane tease before the final song, up there on stage at the Rickshaw in Vancouver. Either that or I’d misheard, gone deaf from the previous awesome Canadiana folk-rock. (A possibility considering we’re all – okay, well, not new fourth member Robert Watt – OLD now.)

What I did hear were the classics. The usuals: from fave super oldies “A Dream About You” and “Misunderstanding” through Treehouse hits, “All The Things I Wasn’t”, a rocktacular drum-fest by the elder Hooper (Chris) on “A Fishing Tale”, “Do You Want To Tell Me?” plus all the soft rockin’ goodness sung by the Tom (the Younger) Hooper.

Even though there were bass troubles, cold-fluey heads and the fact the club video guy either played the dreadful hockey game or his Mac settings on the side screens, the show elicited the typical warm n’ fuzzies one gets from a revisit from the Wrath.

But me? I’m looking forward to the new stuff, chaps. Get thee to, uh, Orangeville with producer Darryl Neudorf, and crank out some future gems, so I can hop in my T.A.R.D.I.S, zoom ahead in time, revisit THOSE songs, then ask the same question I always do: how the hell have these guys not aged? \m/