{"id":13626,"date":"2017-03-01T10:40:30","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T18:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=13626"},"modified":"2017-03-01T12:46:01","modified_gmt":"2017-03-01T20:46:01","slug":"tom-cochrane-shows-victoria-hes-better-than-he-was-25-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2017\/03\/01\/tom-cochrane-shows-victoria-hes-better-than-he-was-25-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Cochrane shows Victoria he\u2019s better than he was 25 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the albums that always seemed to be close to me throughout my childhood was Tom Cochrane\u2019s 1991 release Mad Mad World<\/em>. As I walked into the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre on February 28 to check out Cochrane\u2019s stop here in Victoria on the 25th anniversary tour for the album, the lack of people at the concession didn\u2019t help my skepticism in thinking that age may have gotten the better of him. Then he started playing.<\/p>\n

He opened with the album\u2019s title track and I thought, \u201cDamn, this is what heartland rock should sound like.\u201d His smooth but raspy voice and legendary trademark howls during \u201cNo Regrets\u201d and \u201cLife Is a Highway\u201d invigorated the mind and got the heart pumping.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Tom Cochrane’s still got it… actually, he’s got it better than ever (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The show\u2014like Cochrane\u2014was Canadian through and through. His selfless ability to make sure that everyone from his bass player and drummer to his back-up singers\u2014who he joked were part-time WestJet flight attendants\u2014got recognized for their work was a breath of fresh air in a world of self-centred egotistical artists.<\/p>\n

His impromptu cover of \u201cHit The Road Jack\u201d carried with it an enjoyable \u201cnorthern Canadian small-town bar\u201d feel. He was intimate with the crowd, never shying away from sharing the motivations behind songs, be it personal (\u201cLife Is a Highway\u201d came after a trip to Africa where Cochrane encountered extreme poverty) or political (before playing \u201cLunatic Fringe,\u201d Cochrane leaned toward the mic and said, \u201cFreedom is not something you were born with; freedom is something to protect\u2026 Canada is one of the last great democracies in this world.\u201d).<\/p>\n

His lyrics can still send shivers up the spines of poets and lawyers and construction workers alike. Not to mention that even at 63 years old, Cochrane had a sea of by-and-large 40-plus-year-olds up and rocking along with him at every beat; at one point, one woman began to charge madly up and down the aisle. He wasn\u2019t afraid to slow it down for a song or two with \u201cSinking Like a Sunset\u201d and \u201cThe Secret Is to Know When to Stop.\u201d Although he was open about his age, (at one point joking, \u201cI\u2019m losing my train of thought. That\u2019s what happens when you get frickin\u2019 old!\u201d) these songs sounded better live than they did on the album 25 years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the albums that always seemed to be close to me throughout my childhood was Tom Cochrane\u2019s 1991 release Mad Mad World. As I walked into the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre on February 28 to check out Cochrane\u2019s stop here in Victoria on the 25th anniversary tour for the album, the lack of people at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13626"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13632,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13626\/revisions\/13632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}