Summer’s up and the weather is great and all we need now is an appearance from Kim Mitchell to keep up our summer party tradition. The CNE Bandshell was packed with Kim Mitchell and Max Webster fans. Kim opened the show with quite the bombastic song- OH War! This is a classic Max Webster Tune from their 2nd album, High Class in Borrowed shoes. From there he slipped into his summertime favourites like “Rockland Wonderland”, a nod to his fun days playing at Kingwood at Canada’s Wonderland. 3rd song in is when his Rock and Roll duty kicked in and he let everyone know he still rocks hard to That’s a Man, but not too hard because he also let us know that he was, “Easy to tame”. The capacity crowd was fully in, having a great time when Kim decided to throw out two Max Webster songs at us. The first is always a fav- “High class in borrowed shoes” and a song I have never heard him do before. He warmed us up to it, because he let his fans choose a song they always wanted to hear live. Kim was very surprised at the response of the fans choice. I was thinking it had to be a song like Battlescar, but instead the fans chose another song from the Universal Juveniles album. I think I was the loudest one screaming when I heard he was going into the song- “Blue River Liquor Shine”. It is one of those sleeper songs that everyone loves but no one really talks about. Well that song made my entire summer. Thanks Kim!
From that moment on Kim could do no wrong as his flew through all his other great solo songs like- “I am a Wild Party”, “Patio Lanterns”, and his huge ballad-“All we are”. If you are wondering, yes Peter Fredette is still with Kim Mitchell and still killing it doing the chorus to this great Canadian song!
By the end of the show the crowd was looking really thirsty, so Kim took us and we all got a chance to “Go for Soda”. If Soda is not your thing and you want something stronger, Kim also gave us a chance to enjoy some “Lager and Ale”. Just as you were feeling the buzz go straight to your head he sent us off into space with the amazing guitar outro to the amazing Max song-“Beyond the Moon”.
As an extra note to all you big Max Webster fans, I noticed at the merch table there is a beautifully organized coffee table book for sale. It is called Max Webster: High Class and you can order your copy from this link- http://highclassmax.com
Toronto can feel satiated knowing Kim came and provided another great Canadian Party to enjoy for 2023!
Here are some images of Kim Mitchell: