Good. Gone. Dead.

Back in 1976, when Dave Bidini, Martin Tielli, Tim Vesley, Dave Clarke and Michael Phillip-Wojewoda were just a bunch of hoser kids jamming in their basements in Etobicoke, Ontario, Martin Scorsese filmed the very last concert The Band ever performed together. "The Last Waltz" has since become an iconic film and important historical document in the world of western popular music. On Friday night, along with my friends Kenji and Jeffy, I feel like I experienced my cohorts' equivalent to that last waltz when The Rheostatics took to the Massey Hall stage for their final show.

Though they had been making music for a number of years before I first heard them on CFNY, my introduction to their unique sound and creativity wasn't until the early 1990's when I first went off to university. "Melville" will forever be associated with the freedom and mind expansion of my university days, but for more than 20 years this band has continued to compose and perform some of the most interesting Canadian rock music of all time. You will never hear a band sound quite the same as The Rheostatics.

They played for three and a half hours straight on Friday night. It was obvious that they wanted to stick around and play as many tunes as possible for us as much as we, the audience, wanted them to. Tielli's usually melifluous voice was raspy and his high range was gone due to illness but he still sang with a passion that was admirable and inspiring. We just helped him out in the high, falsetto parts and it was magical. If you want details about the set list you can visit this web site that has been set up to document that final show.

Jeffy and Kenji and I just couldn't believe how they kept going and they must have been exhausted when they finally left the stage after two encore sets, the first of which was an hour long and the second of which was acoustic and done at the edge of the stage and finally right in the middle of the audience. The final notes of the evening came at the end of "Record Body Count". Tielli sang to us: "Joey stepped up on a block of ice, put a rope around his neck". We sang back to him: "Fell asleep before he died" and that, as they say, was that. It somehow seemed a fitting end to the night.

Thank you for the music, guys. You done good.