like watching Celine Dion say fuck

Every once in a while, when you work in the music industry, you have to take the time to remind yourself why you work in the music industry. And lately, for me, all of those "reminder" moments have been occuring while attending concerts at The Masonic Temple in downtown Toronto.

Now, because I'm a west coaster, I'm not one of the ones who can gloat about remembering epic good times in this space. My first initiation to the room was in fact as a wee audience assistant on season two of Open Mic with Mike Bullard. Ah, those were the days when the unpaid interns were treated to the glory of seeing Mike wander the upstairs area in his white flannel bathrobe trying to make us laugh at his chuckle humour as we toiled away making callbacks to upcoming potential audience members. It wasn't the most glamourous of gigs, and we weren't getting paid - it was simply a way for us to reach to the first rung on the ladder within the media industry.

Anyway, years later and I find myself thinking about the last sixty days of joy the room has brought me. The Polaris Prize had all ten nominees play songs this year. The Spectacle taping brought me an evening hosted by Elvis Costello and the Imposters and jamming with Bono and The Edge. And tonight it was the migration of the west coast to the middle. Michael Buble took centre stage for a self-hosted turn on Live at The Concert Hall.

I have a special place in my heart for Michael Buble. I worked with him years ago when I did my Venue Management stints at the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition). Those were the days when he'd be a regular on the main concert stage and it almost looked like he'd be a fixture as much as the Del Richards Orchestra who, I swear, played every year for about 50 years. I remember seeing his name in smudgy ink listings for Babaluu, the late night Jazz hot spot in downtown Vancouver. And I even once placed my then-unfull resume in the hands of his agent and said to her, no really, I live in Toronto during the year, I'm a Ryerson student and I would love to work with Mr Buble, I think he's really talented. She didn't call me back. And his career skyrocketed soon after.

So, when the opportunity came up from a producer at Bravo! to attend a taping of the show, I wanted to check in and see him in a locale as small as the PNE stage again.

As the evening began, it was full-on Buble, coming at the audience with no abandon. He doesn't hold back with his charm nor his edge and for some it's offensive. Though at first charmed by his clean cut persona, once the raucous energy that Buble was putting out there got too 'dirty', my sister's friend Joan, who I'd invited as my guest to the taping, leaned in and whispered, "it's like watching Celine Dion say fuck!"

Appropriately put, I thought. But I didn't really have a problem with it. You see, I kinda feel that the most successful people these days are the ones who are the most aware of themselves. And if you happen to be a no underwear-wearing Contemporary Jazz singer who admits he knew at 12 that he wanted to get laid and therefore wanted to get famous that it wasn't always about "the love of the music" then so be it. And what's wrong with that?

The point is that Celine Dion likely does say fuck. I'd probably be more offended by her accent when she says it than the actual act itself. But people always have these opinions about artists and they usually prefer a certain version. I guess that's why people invented 'media training' but even though I spend my days pitching and coordinating interviews for artists (today alone I handled requests for Echo & The Bunnymen, Silversun Pickups, Jason Bajada, Sea Wolf, Flying Lotus, Shad, Amanda Martinez and Beast) I'm never really sure if the media training is simply to train you to be more generic or to actually help you be comfortable being yourself in front of thousands of strangers. Most of the time I suspect it's to learn how to answer the questions in a certain way. And since I'm always a fan of standing up for you and approaching everything by having the most fun allowable while showing off the inner awesome you, not everyone agrees with my direction.

A producer friend of mine was watching the taping to finalize the line of questioning he'd be doing for Canada AM on CTV the following morning. He asked me what I should ask Buble. I said that perhaps someone should ask him if anyone had ever called him Bubble. He looked at me, shocked. I retorted that it would likely be a good first question as he'd probably have a good character story and it would be more personal than something pseudo-epic like "what song do you want played at your funeral?" or "if there was one person you'd like to meet or perform with, who would it be?" Sometimes I feel like it's best to regard artists as people, too. Can you imagine being asked the same host of questions every day on every album cycle? Cue Celine Dion.