HANSON BROS at THE ANZA CLUB - 01/20/07

It had been damn near ages since I'd last seen the Hanson Brothers. Not since they called me up in the playoff's to be in the big dance--on a tour out to Newfoundland and back. And that was in 1997! Good lord, that's been ten years ago...
Oh sure, I'd seen their Wright/Holliston cousins a number of times over the last few years, but I was assured by the Nomeansno fellas that a speaking relationship with the Hansons was tenuous at best.
So when I found a handbill for the event stapled to my front door like a summons, I figured I ought to attend. I still wanted to get my Ken Ellacott rookie card back from Tommy that he swore he "needed to borrow for a few days". Again, that was 10 years ago.
The Anza (Australian/New Zealand) Club in Vancouver at first seemed an unlikely choice for a venue. Directly across the street there is an omnious government building with cameras on its roof pointing to the sidewalk, that somebody told me was an RCMP building. During the course of the evening even the building's night watchman came out onto the street to have a bemused look a the "Puck Rockers" who'd gathered there just down from it...
I'd regrettably missed the opening acts which included what I heard was a raucous set by the Shitties (featuring old Hanson brothers trainer Craig Bougie who'd been traded to the Shitties on a deal for Ernie Hanson and Sergio Momesso some years back. (Sergio was not there)
But a packed house had gathered in some vintage Hansons' shirts, and wearing jersey's of long-defunct teams for a pretty wild night hosted by everybody's favourite puck-rock hooligans.
The Hansons started with the time honoured tradition of opening with "Total Goombah!" with masked Robby Hanson's pig-in-heat walking bassline well, walking around like it owned the place. With an ever present Tommy Hanson drooling onto his southpaw Gibson SG. All the hits were there, "Sabrina", "No More Head Cheese", "I Just Found Out My Girlfriends A Robot", and even "You are Not For Me" which was a treat.
About 25 minutes into the set the Hansons wound things up and came back for an encore that was equally as long as their set, but alas we were denied the idiot savant genius of "I'll ask the 8 Ball". I still have the 8-Ball we took across Canada and dipped in the Atlantic and the Pacific. (Why we did that I have no idea)
Admittedly there were some problems with the PA that occasionally kept cutting out and left the room only with monitor volume for a few seconds. But the Hansons were animated enough and the pit having such a good time body-check dancing that it was easy not to forget.
About halfway through the second portion of the night Robby Hanson produced a geoduck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoduck) that had been placed in the crotch of his long-johns (or Incredible Hulk Underoo's, I couldn't tell from my vantage point) and threw it out into the audience.
While the Eagles or Boston might have a beach ball be tossed around the front of their concert in aid of promoting good times, the Hanson Brothers had chosen the rude geoduck (pronounced Gooey-Duck).
When it was thrown to the wolves in the pit, it bounced flaccidly from head to head, its vulgar stipe occasionally soggily slapping the unaware in the face from its hellish trajectory.
Just when it looked like it had disappeared under the feet of the crowd, to be squashed like a hot grape, it surfaced again and landed on Johnny Hanson_s wrist and even Johnny himself-- who played a career high 39 games in the 90's and had 1253 penalty minutes to show for it--recoiled from it, though you couldn't help but see him laugh at the same time.
God knows that would have been enough, but the mighty fish (sometimes called an Elephant Trunk Clam) no sooner than it had originally been produced from betwixt Robby Hansons crotch, began to emit a ghastly briny stink.
Considering its size, the smell impressively began to dominate the whole venue with a low-tide aroma that would have felled a skunk, or Theo Fluery, whoever snorted it first.
The stinking Hansons wound everything up with the two note wonder "Sudden Death" and I was brought back ten years early when I'd toured (as a equipment manager and travelling secretary) to this monstrous horde.
Ernie Hanson bashed the skins so well that Kenny Hanson II would be proud, and god knows Kenny Hanson I would be smiling down from that big penalty box in the sky...
Added bonus was John Chedsey who continued the crew tradition of wearing a referee jersey whistling down hand passes, and trying to keep some decorum in re-setting up the mikes when they fell. Booza Pickup would also be proud...
At the end of the night I figured I'd go backstage and finally hit Tommy up for that hockey card, but he was too busy drooling into an ice bucket at the end to make much sense, Robby Hanson was shovelling handfulls of wheat-germ into his mouth, and Johnny came up to me and said, "Aaron... Nice to see you again." And slammed me into the backstage wall. I feel under an avalache of punches from the Hansons vocalist and screamed for help. Ernie Hanson was nowhere to be found... Out in the crowd trying to sign people up to some investment scheme involving a space-age polymer called Q43...
And as Johnny stomped me underfoot (he had the decency to take his skate off, god bless him) I felt the hand of referee John Chedsey pull me out of the firestorm before Hanson managed to fracture my skull or explode my groin. "Listen, Aaron. You better go home. They're kind of wound up, and worst part is they actually like you."
I stumbled onto Ontario street spitting blood all over my Cleveland Barons jersey, and realized I'd sustained a hip-flexor injury (and am currently listed as day to day). But as I weaved erratically on the sidewalk heading home, I had some good old fashioned old-time-hockey puck rock songs still echoing in my head.
--Aaron Chapman