The Hour live in Vancouver
So what do you think of when you are asked to picture the typical CBC audience? Your grandmother? Right, right, I pictured your grandmother too. She smells of cookies.
Well in my experience the CBC audience, and the sorts of people who show up for live CBC events, are the same kinds of people who show up at film festivals and any public speaking appearance by a vaguely leftist academic.
You’ve got your elderly Trudeau era red Liberals, the socialist grandparents if you will who in their mind still live in a social just Canada.
You’ve got the members of the high school A/V club, the kids who don’t care about the CBC’s news division but just like the fact that they play jazz late at night. The A/V kids are often wearing the clothes that their socialist Trudeau era grandmothers made for them, or similar clothes that they bought at a thrift store.
Add to that the university leftists, the CFS true believers who at first you admire for their beliefs and commitment to their cause but after about ten minutes you realize that it’s either a) all a scam to sleep with women or b) they actually really believe it and that’s even scarier.
Throw in a few indie kids who are there because host George Stroumboulopoulos was during his time at Much Music the only VJ who actually seemed to care about music and not just being on TV and you’ve got the audience for the Vancouver tapings of The Hour, the CBC Newsworld’s youth orientated take on the evening news. Granted The Hour taping’s ratio of socialist grandmothers to indie kids was a bit askew from the typical CBC fare because of the presence of Stroumboulopoulos (less dyed in the wool Trudeau-ites and more Weakerthans fans).
Despite not owning anything made of hemp I still was anxious to see The Hour taped in Vancouver. When it debuted The Hour was regular viewing for me, and though I haven’t seen it this season I was excited for the chance to see a live taping.
I had met George Stroumboulopoulos before, several years ago at a a Canadian University Press conference in Ottawa. He was still with Much Music then, but it was clear that his heart was not in it. Stroumboulopoulos was more excited to talk about getting tear gassed by police during the riots at the 2001 Summit of the Americas than he was about the new Jessica Simpson video. All we wanted to talk to him about was how cool people like Trent Reznor and Bono were and whether or not he could hook us up with a VJ gig.
Still despite being cranky that I never did get a job introducing videos, it was clear to me that Stroumboulopoulos’ days at Much Music were numbered and so I was happy that when he left Much he was able to relativly quickly make the jump to a show on the CBC that suits his style perfectly.
The taping was to open to the public at four, but we were encouraged to line up earlier to ensure that we got to get in since the guy at the CBC told me that they were overbooking the show. The line had already started at the CBC Plaza at the back studio entrance on Cambie and Robson when I arrived at 3:20. My friend Nathan showed up a few minutes later to join me in the line.
Behind us were a group of girls who I think were student journalists because they were all talking about how they were going to write articles about the taping.
I managed to resist the temptation to turn around and say, “Please I’m totally blogging this and don’t you know that blogging has been the new journalism since like Rather-gate?” I resisted, probably because they made me feel old as they talked about the Conservative government of the 1980s as though it was some kind of third hand anecdote that they’d heard about but didn’t really believe happened.
We were lead into the CBC building and after being allowed to check our coats we took seats in the studio as technicians fiddled with cameras. After a bit of a wait and after spending awhile talking to a girl from my high school in Kelowna that I met in line, George came out. The men in the audience screamed like teen girls at the Ed Sullivan Show when the Beatles were on and the girls simply fainted.
Okay, perhaps not quite, but certainly Stroumboulopoulos was the man of the hour, the star of the show. In person he’s pretty much the same as his public persona, funny articulate and engaging.
After some basic instructions from the show’s director were given to the crowd, Stroumboulopoulos took questions from the audience for about half an hour or so until the show’s taping actually began. Most of the crowd were obvious fans and were happy to listen to tales of his growing disillusionment with Much Music and his eventual jump to the CBC.
When it was pointed out by someone in the audience that Much still runs the shows hosted by Stroumboulopoulos even now years after he left he agreed.
“I’m on there now more than I was before,” he said, also pointing out that Much would often run his shows against The Hour in order to compete with his new CBC show.
The final straw with Much, he said, was the show Fandemonium. A game show where fans of bands do sub-Fear Factor style gross out stunts in order to win prizes, it remains a low point for Much.
The Hour is taped live, with pre-recorded bits. In this episode Stroumboulopoulos went to the home of a survivor of kidnapping in Iraq to get a perspective of the current story of two Canadians being held hostage there, and goes to a Chapters read magazines with Vancouver blogger and musician Matthew Good.
Seeing The Hour live is a lot like seeing it on television, except you can’t properly hear all the pre-taped audio clips but you do get chances to win prizes during the commercial breaks. The Hour is being taped today in Whistler and then returns to the east. Next time it’s in town I’d recommend checking it out.
I’ll be there with your grandmother.
