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Chad Kroeger warned us from the start he isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Nickelback’s signature hit begins with the high school drop-out admitting to not being a wise man and — while Eddie Vedder may have thoughts on him not cutting it as a poor man stealing — it should come as no great surprise these hard-partying bubblegrunge doofuses from rural Alberta lean to the right.
But while it’s one thing to overlook our current boycott of unnecessary travel to the USA and cut Nickelback some slack for maintaining their pre-planned touring obligations in tumultuous times, it’s quite another to see them sign up to co-headline a Trollapalooza tour exclusively of red states with Kid fucking Rock.
The new Rock the Country tour sees a convoy of treasonous troubadours travelling to a total of ten Trumpy towns, with the next dog-whistle stop being in York, PA at the end of the month. While the absence of the newly heterosexual Village People is glaring, the traveling circus features performances by usual suspects such as Hank Williams Jr., Travis Tritt, Lee Greenwood, Big & Rich, ‘Naug Day vets Three Doors Down, and even Neil Young’s old antagonists Lynyrd Skynyrd available to meet any requests for “Free Bird.”
Although the two main acts are the only ones guaranteed to hit the stage at any given show. My money is on the quartet not playing their early hit “Never Again” so as to not risk offending the many wifebeaters in the crowd, and it’d be fun if the two main acts do a mash-up of their respective “Photograph” and “Picture.”
This is is no mere mostly male music festival, according to Kid Rock. It’s a movement! “It’s a celebration of hard-working, God-fearing patriots who love America,” claimed the artist formerly known as Bob Ritchie in a promo ad on Instagram. “A gathering place where the beer pours, love flows and live music rains down like a monsoon. A festival where we celebrate our military, first responders, Jesus, and freedumb!”
Football could easily be added to the list of these red-blooded Americans favorite things and yet the band got a very different reaction 14 years ago when they played a Thanksgiving halftime show at a Detroit Lions game despite a petition with more than 50,000 signatures begging the NFL to put a stop to it. The band members, to their credit, have always shown a sense of humor about the widespread dislike of their incredibly popular music, and Nickleback clapped back with a video where they dressed as famous Michiganders Tom Selleck, Alice Cooper, Dave Coulier, and Robocop to try to win the haters over.
Ryan Reynolds’ testy response to Kevin Arnold’s accurate description as “overproduced, formulaic ear garbage” in a Deadpool movie promo is probably the best encapsulation of Canada’s complicated mix of pride and embarassment of the former Metallica cover band:
Fifty million albums sold worldwide, eleventh best-selling musical act of all time, Billboard’s most successful rock group of the past decade, six Grammy nominations, 12 Juno Awards — those count — six Billboard Awards, two American Music Awards, one People’s Choice Awards, Canadian, and a partridge in a fucking pear tree!
Which is all the more impressive since nobody will admit to listening to them. Nickelback were also inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame — which, ahem, also counts — in 2023, the same year as Trooper, a band who’ve been falsely claiming to be here for a good time not a long time for a solid half century.
Only time will tell if their fanbase at home will be cool with the ratioed rockers literally going out their way to places like Little Rock or Sioux Falls to entertain the MAGA barbarians at the gate or if the band will find themselves in the same barrel of the newly despised Wayne “The Great Once” Gretzky. But the whole thing reeks of Sally Bowles dancing for the Nazis at the Kit Kat Club in Cabaret.
This is how they remind us of who they really are, but while the band may offer J6 types a chance to enjoy some misogyny, pyrotechnics and chunky riffs in a safe place, they’re unlikely to offer material support to the movement in their former Alberta home riding of Battle River-Crowfoot, where Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre insists on running in a by-election three provinces over after hilariously losing his Ottawa area seat in last month’s election.
Presumably none of these big rock stars still reside in the remote farming community of Hanna — a town whose most renowned rightwinger remains mustachioed Calgary Flames legend Lanny McDonald — and will be unable to pull a lever for Peewee when the date is decided. No Fixed Address is, after all, the title of one of their biggest albums.
By-elections can only be held 30 days after Elections Canada releases its final report, which it has yet to do, not least because a Quebec riding outside Montreal recently flipped to the Liberals by one frickin’ vote. (In case you need another unnecessary reminder voting matters.) Meaning he at least won’t have to compete with the Edmonton Oilers for voters’ attention if the team makes the Stanley Cup finals again this year. Propaganda Pete is expected to nonetheless take it in a cakewalk after the guy who easily won re-election, Damien Kurek, dutifully stepped aside for his shitty boss.
But while “Poilievre” is a word I will continue to have to type for the foreseeable future, it’s possible Nickelback’s less diehard Canadian fans will take a line from one of their biggest hits to heart. “It’s hard to say it, it’s time to say it: Goodbye.”
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