The Arrogant Worms visit Brantford

This past Friday night (March 6th) The Arrogant Worms brought their unique combination and music and comedy to Brantford's Sanderson Centre. I had found out of their appearance in September and had bought the tickets for the event in October. So I have been waiting for their appearance for quite awhile. This was not the first time I had seen the Worms in Concert, the first time was in Picton Ontario.

The Worms, who are Mike McCormack, Trevor Strong and Chris Patterson, came to the stage at a bit after 8:00PM. Now it was immediately pointed out that Chris looked a bit different, in fact he had morphed into Mike Ford, formerly of the Canadian group Moxy Fruvous, group which had as member, Jian Ghomeshi, who was also the former host of the CBC program >Play, I still have the tee shirt.

The opening few minutes the troupe joked about Chris Patterson and how things like sleep are probably foreign to him now, in fact one of the member said he's probably walking around like a zombie attempting to change the diaper of strangers.

It was revealed that the group had a Brantford connection, Mike McCormack's parents were both born and raised in Brantford and met at the Cockshutt Plow Factory. Also, the video of one of their most popular songs, "Carrot Juice is Murder" was shot in Brantford. The scenes of the protest were shot on the steps of the Carnegie Centre in the downtown. They explained the reason for choosing Brantford was if they had done the video in Toronto, they probably would have been arrested. As it was, as they were shooting, a few of the Brantford cops came around to see what was happening and when told of the video expressed a "cool" and then suggested a location that may have offered better light.



They played a mixture of songs from a number of their albums, including the latest, Beige and Torpid. As well, a number of classics, including that great sing along song "Mounted Animal Nature Trail", the joke of the song is the audience participation during the chorus "And the cow goes....'Moo'", which is part of the joke, the animals are dead. Part way through the song, someone said outloud "Oh I get it", which led to the suggestion that should be incorporated into one of the signs of Brantford, "Brantford, Oh I get it". They also made constant reference to "Crazy Bill's", which is a local convenience store next to the Sanderson Centre. Mike Ford got tired of one young person near us and jumped down to the stage and "threatened" him, he said he was lucky he wasn't in the aisle seat. I think Mike probably gets unhinged easily, after all, he did tour with Jian.

One of the newer songs that was funny was "The Hot Dog Song". Here is the lyrics:

Everybody loves hot dogs
Even pasty Hippies
'Casue its hard to beat a tube of meat
But now a question hits me

What the hell's in
A hotdog
I shouldn't ask maybe
'Cause i don't know any animals that grow cylindricaly

So have a hotdog on me my friends
It's made out of animal oddds and ends
Have a hotdog on me my friends
It's the particle board of meat

Its good to reuse and recycle
The unpopular pieces of meat
That are quite gross
Yet after they're proccesed
Are such a Delicious treat

That the children eat them 'til they're queasy
Because they love the taste
Of sodium phosphate
And iridorbate
Soy protien
And Sodium nitrate

So have a hotdog on me my friends
It's made out of animal odds and ends
Have a hotdog on me my friends
Its the praticle board of meat

May or maynot contain
Chicken and, or
Pork and, or
Meat

So have a hotdog on me my friends
Dont think 'bout the parts from the pigs rear end
Have a hotdog on me my friends
Its the particle board
The particle board
The board particle
Off mmmmmeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaat

Meditate on that truth, "The Particle Board of Meat".

The songs were hilarious, the banter was equally so, you would think all three of them had toured for years, well two of them had, but the chemistry was great. The crowd was appreciative and got into the humour. I even cheered and got acknowledged by them when they started talking about "Tubas". Being a tuba player, I could not simply sit back.

They ended the evening with their most popular song, "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate". But even after that, the crowd was not satisfied, they came back for two encores.


It was truly a great evening of fun and humour.

I would have included photographs, but the Sanderson Centre has some silly rule about using photographic equipment.

If you get the chance, go see the Worms live. You will thank me.