SOUL SURMISE

RYAN ADAMS LIVE AT THE WATERFRONT HALL, BELFAST 20.4.2012

 

In my review of my last Ryan Adams gig in the same venue, which I can’t believe was ten years ago, I wrote about the “high speed shiftiness of his pinballing from one spotlight to the other as he moved from folk guitar to rock guitar to piano or in his constant lighting of cigarettes that the guitar smoked more of than him!” The first impact of tonight’s show is the different human being that Ryan Adams has become. There was no fidgeting, no shiftiness and not a cigarette in sight. Yes, he likes a swear word or two and tonight his guitars give him many reasons in the tuning department to use them. However, marriage to Mandy Moore seems to be agreeing with the wild boy of alternative country. He introduces the classic Whiskeytown song 16 Days by confessing that he doesn’t know what it is about having been so drugged up at the time. It is unspoken and very obvious that Ryan Adams has matured.

It is good news because when he sits on his chair central stage and breaks in to Oh My Sweet Carolina you are immediately gripped by the brilliance. The tune, the song, the voice, the guitar, the performance. Ryan Adams has been too often more interested in quantity than quality, and from the top of the Main Street of the music world in 2001 he headed down a few blind back musical alleys, but when he touches the heart of his art he is up there as the natural successor to Gram Parsons. Then there is a little Neil Young about him too. Adams is Young-esque in some of the guitar playing tonight but he Young has modelled that career that can play big and loud on one record and gentle and intimate on the next. Adams punk and metal products on the merchandise table tonight which is a long way from what we get in this solo setting.

Many artists find a careful spot on the set list for the quiet acoustic ballad and try to earn the right for a few moments of such respect. Tonight Adams starts with that few quiet moments and if anything gets quieter as it goes. Two hours of just Ryan doing his thing. He jokes about standing for the fast ones. There are none. He moves from sitting with guitar to standing with guitar to piano and it is ballad after ballad. Rescue Blues gets a subtle piano arrangement. In the vastness of his catalogue the set list is full of great songs and the five included off the new record Ashes and Fire fit snugly with the best; Dirty Rain could be a Belfast anthem with its “the last time I was here it was raining...”

What a night like this reveals is our love for sadness or our need for catharsis. Joking about the protest sound of his songs Adams added that they were all protesting happiness! Accurate. You hope a few good years with Mandy Moore might bring sunnier hues! In the end it is a beautiful kind of heartache that Adams purveys.

Stocki's review of Ryan Adams in 2002

Rosie Thomas Live At Calvin College, Grand Rapids MI; March 27, 2012

Rosie Thomas is a quirk. A beautiful quirk... but a quirk. This is the first time I have watched her do her stand up comedy character Sheila Saputo and Sheila is a quirk! When Rosie eventually emerges as Rosie, the singer, Sheila never seems too far from the surface. That eccentric high voice and over exuberant between songs enthusiasm reminds you of the earlier stand up and when Rosie sits down and sings in that “normal” beautiful way, you actually wonder does Rosie Thomas sing in order that she could feel normal for three minute bursts of deep therapy?

She has other reasons to sing. Dressed in a bright red smock-like dress with a big heart on the side and similarly coloured tights underneath Thomas, at one stage, leaves her guitar down and moves to the piano. She then sits on the piano stool sideways looking out at the audience. With legs dangling like an eleven year old child Thomas tells the story of herself at that very age, when she would ask her father as they travelled in the car whether the people in the cars alongside them were happy. Her dad tried to chill Rosie’s compassionate concern but shortly afterwards she woke him in the night to tell him that she had come up with her way to love everyone when she grew up. She would sing songs and send them out to everyone! We were, tonight, on the end of this eleven year old vocational eureka! To the point of almost over the top Thomas told this student crowd that they were loved and special as they were. As a former University Chaplain I could not agree more!

But what about the music. Well Rosie Thomas is simply a wonderful songwriter and her insights into her reason for singing makes even more sense of her art. Her songs seem to be little love letters sent out to her audiences with stories of life’s hardships and struggles, all covered up in love and left as companions for the journeys up mountains and through the rain clouds that Rosie makes reference to in her zany patter. Those songs are from zany. They are simply gorgeous little three minute snippets of life and love. What words! What melody! What depth of soul! There is a world weariness in the loveliness of Thomas’s performances but never an absence of hope. Every moment of life from leaving home to exploring New York City to falling in love are emotions to share in an attempt to find empathy with the people travelling in the cars alongside her. The new album With Love says it all and the songs from it like 2 Birds, In Time and Sometimes Love and, particularly in front of tonight's college audience Wildflowers, with its finding the right place inthe world, tell us that Thomas is getting better and better in her craft and in her reaching her audience with love!

SNOW PATROL LIVE AT THE ODYSSEY, BELFAST 23.1.12

As they bombarded Belfast with the most potent and powerful rock onslaught that I have experienced since I saw the U2’s Vertigo arena tour in Vancouver back in 2005 I couldn’t help but think that this is the best time and place to see Snow Patrol. Belfast is always the best place to see Snow Patrol. For Gary, Nathan and Jonny this is home and home has rarely recognised a band as their own as much as Belfast has with these onetime indie misfits who grew into what we have tonight, an arena filling swan of rock’s mainstream. Belfast has always come out in numbers, always sung along and Gary Lightbody has always played up to it even writing Take Back The City about the city’s past, present and future.

Take Back The City was one of those early adrenaline blasts that these guys used to explode out of the night. It was as they went boom, boom, boom with strutting rock riffs and anthemic choruses that I realised that the strength of a rock band’s set can only increase by the quality albums they have released. Six records in and this band have now enough songs to grip an audience for the allotted hour and forty five minutes. Tonight Snow Patrol not only played at home and had the songs to play but their experience of the arena has grown. Lightbody’s ease with himself is evident as he sings more and more without a guitar. Connolly is a shape throwing visceral guitar hero. Jonny Quinn and Paul Wilson hold a steady as well as creative back beat groove and Tom Simpson recently joined by Johnny McDaid add all kinds of swathing and flourishing grace notes. Never have this band been more ready and never have the more delivered.

Setting off in attention grabbing mode and ending the same, the middle section is a risk with a general audience but reveals that new songwriting talent that Lightbody has become. More sleight of hand great melodies than foot stomping kardia thud new songs Garden Rules and New York, encased splendidly in Set The Fire to The Third Bar, with local girl Shauna Tohill filling in marvellously for Martha Wainwright and Miriam Kaufmann, and Make This Go On Forever. Lightbody even dared say that he thought Garden Rules was the best thing the band had done until now. Then it was back into the hits and the kardia grab until the Celtic techno of Fallen Empires with Nathan Connolly’s mandolin and a drum orchestra took the whole thing out. The audience singing was another highlight if predictably so on home soul. Run and Chasing Cars would now have no need of Lightbody singing at all but Belfast was in voice throughout.

What becomes apparent to me as this gig sweeps too quickly towards its end is the positivity of Snow Patrol. There is a lot of heartache and frustration and difficult social scenarios in their songs BUT their message is one of heart-open-taking-back-just-say-yes affirmation of love and life. Gary Lightbody doesn’t claim Bono’s spiritual anchor though he does sing that “On my knees I think clearer” and yet the band end gigs with more than songs. Tonight’s epic performance of Fallen Empires with the congregational chant of “we are the light, we are the light...” send out a positive vibe to a generation that need it. Then Just Say Yes as the encore closer in a city and country that was famous for saying No is a another subtle preach of positivity:

“Just say yes, just say there's nothing holding you back
It's not a test, nor a trick of the mind
Only love.”

Even the “For God’s sake dear” doesn’t have any sense of blasphemy but every hint of prayer. This is more than a good concert, it send something good out into the city tonight!

(loads more Snow Patrol articles in their own section on this blog)

CHRISTY MOORE LIVE AT THE WATERFRONT HALL - 23.11.11

The first thing you notice is the age range of Christy Moore audience. Here’s, what is on paper, a folk singer, well on in age, bald and portly on a huge stage with just a guitarist, though Declan Sinnott is not just a guitarist, singing songs of love, justice across the world and the entire history of Ireland. He’s not cool, he’s not hip and he’s not beating X Factor to the Christmas Number 1 but from teens to the eighties, they are cramming in for a third sell out night in Belfast’s Waterfront Hall. Christy Moore is an Irish national treasure and a cultural phenomenon. He is our Elvis, Beatles and Dylan all in one song collecting troubadour. If you cut the strata of Ireland’s culture then he is embedded deep within it.

Let me explain the “our” in that last sentence. It says everything about a Christy Moore gig, and a lot about the foibles of this wee island that keeps my feet dry, when I need to explain my political position on the island of Ireland to make sense of this review. I find myself in the middle section of a Venn Diagram where one circle is Ireland and the other circle Britain. I am neither pure unadulterated one nor the other and find myself a half cast mongrel of the two. At a Christy Moore gig I try to drag the line of my central section of the diagram further across into the Irish circle but my British side gets a little uncomfortable at the naming of hunger strikers in No Time For Love and dedicating a song written by Bobby Sands to Sands’ son Gerard; something’s out of kilter in my head. At the same time, since I first heard that Sands’ song Back Home In Derry at Self Aid in the RDS, Dublin in 1986 realising that singing might be the safest option, by the time it gets to the end I am in love with my Irish part again. As an aside both Back Home In Derry and McIhatton, about a potcheen brewer from Glenravel, are so well crafted that in another life Sands might have been known as a songwriter rather than a terrorist/martyr.

Christy Moore sings the history, geography and current affairs of Ireland, and across the world at times too. A song from his new record Tyrone Boys is a case in point. A song that has changed lyrically over many years it speaks of some of the island’s darkest times in most specific of term and makes you cry at our darkness but somehow keeps the light of love for this tiny place shining in your heart. Missing You about moving to London, City Of Chicago about those driven out by the famine, Joxer Goes to Stuttgart about Ray Houghton’s goal against England in the 1988 European Soccer Championships (biggest cheer of the night and my British circle disappeared for a second or two!!!), Vive Le Quinte Brigada about Irishmen fighting in The Spanish Civil War all tell our story. Lisdoonvarna and Little Honda 50 add humour to that tale. When in Smoke and Strong Whiskey he gets the entire crowd to sing “Oh, oh the Holy Land...” you are intensely caught up in a spiritual audit of Ireland, your pride tempered with sadness and shame.

Not that Moore limits himself to Ireland. He has a heart, like Old Testament prophets, for the oppressed and songs like Victor Jara and Biko Drum sees him on the side of the leaders of freedom wherever they stood with the people. Most recent and most poignant tonight is Kevin Littlewood’s song Morecombe Bay about the deaths of 23 Chinese cockle picking migrant workers in 2004 – “Yes the tide's the very devil/And the devil has his day/On the weary cockle grounds of Morecambe Bay.”

In the midst of the genres of protest and storytelling Christy Moore is a gifted interpreter of the love song. Tonight we get Black Is The Colour, Beeswings, Nancy Spain and The Voyage, each stunningly beautiful and a blessing if your significant other is sitting beside you.

In the end Christy Moore, with the help of Sinnott’s stunning grace notes on various guitars, brings you to tears. Tears of heartache, tears of pride, tears of laughter and tears of unadulterated love; sometimes the tears of laughter and the tears of sadness are running at the very same time. Tonight’s major surprise for me was finding myself in a moment of deep souled worship. Moore loves Jimmy MacCarthy’s hymn Bright Blue Rose but tonight he gave it a reverence that drew in communal hymn singing between Fairytale In New York and Lisdoonvarna. It was utterly spiritual, “2000 years and still it grows...to ponder his life and his death eternally...” So I leave Irish, more aware than ever that I am not completely and being reminded that the secret of my life whether Irish, British or whatever is found in pondering Jesus life and death and angry at the injustices that he was born to smash. Now that’s a concert. Astounding!

SNOW PATROL LIVE ON LATER WITH... JOOLS

 

From two months out from their new album landing in the stores Snow Patrol are building a media frenzy that suggest the record company might have been disappointed that their last record A Hundred Million Suns though very successful didn’t come near the sales figures of 2006’s Eyes Open. So, as we wait expectantly for Fallen Empires it was great to get a little flavour on their live set on Later With... Jools.

The show started with the leadoff single Called Out In The Dark and live it cut an edgier strut with more Nathan Connolly guitar than the electronic radio friendly sound of the single. The band’s obligatory extra tracks on their compilation Up To Now were very electronic and it could be that as they head more in that direction that their live shows will become more interesting and a live album soon required.

Two of the three songs on the show tonight are already available on the ep. This Isn’t Everything You Are is brand new and is a revelation. This is a profound song of healing and rehumanising the soul that has been damaged by loss; it is full of intensity, mood, poignancy and hopeful pastoral care. Lightbody’s lyrics have always been underestimated and here we see the maturing of his vision of what a song can do.

That same maturity is revealed right across the band as on Fallen Empires was electric and had there been albums available on the press of a red button immediately after this performance sales would have soared. Snow Patrol have never shirked from sharing their limelight with friends and that was on show again. A few drummers added under Johnny Quinn’s awesome pounding of tom toms become a percussive orchestra. Out front and mandolins, pianos and acoustic guitars are building on that rhythm as the one line Snow Patrol melodic style seems to be always waiting for a lift off that never comes. Then it arrives and to Lightbody’s left appears a familiar angelic voice; Bangor’s Foy Vance, whose soulful genius was hijacked by a more plastic pop sheen version in the name of Paulo Nutini, is where he should always have been. Vance has a voice to touch hearts and he adds some beauty to the Snow Patrol choir that explodes like the crescendo that greeted shepherds on the first Christmas morning. This anthemic “we are the light” refrain is enthralling and enchanting capturing all eyes and ears to leave the audience captivated and breathless. November 14^th can’t come soon enough!

Yvonne Lyon & Gareth Davies-Jones at Fitzroy 16.9.11

When Yvonne Lyon and Gareth Davies-Jones tour together, as they frequently do, they don’t have a support and main act or even go as a double bill. Instead, they add Yvonne’s multi-instrumentalist husband and songwriter in his own right David to the mix and do it in the round. They craft the set by moving across the line, playing and harmonising on each other’s work and even occasionally collaborating. It makes for a night of very thoughtful soul deep music of the very highest quality. On top of all that they have this wonderfully casual way of charming an audience with their between songs banter. It is a beautiful thing.

It would all be a little vacuous though if it wasn’t for the songs. I have watched these artists from a distance for some years as they have developed their craft and they just get better and better. Their styles are different. Gareth sits in a more folky place. The best of his earlier work was of a protest vein perhaps influenced by Martyn Joseph. Today he has added much to his palette particularly the story song in the old ballad tradition. Indeed he has gone looking in libraries, and wherever he can find, for those kinds of songs. In this live setting, with mandolins and accordions available, songs like Sweet Portaferry works a treat. His own song about the boat The Princess Victoria which sank between Stranraer and Belfast in 1953 shows the skills he has gleaned from his study and when it blends, so seamlessly that everyone thinks it is a continuation of the song, into Yvonne’s Farewell it is a haunting moment that stills the vastness of the Church setting. On the protest side the image of a butterfly caught in an underground train after a Trade Justice rally, in the songs Butterfly, is a stunning image and “someone needs to open a window” is an inspiring challenge.

Yvonne Lyon is more in the singer songwriter mould. She has a poetic way with words, an accessible ease with melody and then a great voice that brings a winning blend of songs that seem so familiar yet original to her. For her it is the heart and the way the world bruises the heart and the love that carries us through the hurts and disappointments. All Is Not Lost and I Am Loved have very much this soul healing intention. Lyon has also this artist’s ability to see things the rest of us would miss. A little disabled girl smiling at her as she crossed the street in front of her car delivered the touching Everything’s Fine, her mother discovering that her real mother who gave her up for adoption was still alive conjured the sad wrestling of A Difficult Kind and her other Grandmother’s company and spiritual roots opened the door to soul in Come. David Lyon is not left out in this particular line up either. Virtuoso on a range of instruments and harmonies throughout the night his own song If I Don’t Have Love is a lovely setting of 1 Corinthians 13.

Perhaps the last song a cover of The Waterboys’ Bring Em All In best reviews the gig. These three have taken us into their lives and beyond their lives, they have not shirked life’s hardship or those caught up most in that hardship. They have then wrapped their songs in the love of God that can soothe the hurts of an aching world and done it in songs that can soothe a soul at the end of another week clattering around in that world; a most refreshing evening in art and spiritual touch.

ERIC ANGUS WHYTE & MITCH MCVICKER LIVE IN FITZROY 2.4.11

I knew when I set out to see Mitch McVicker and Eric Angus Whyte that the legacy of the late great Rich Mullins would linger in the air. That it did is taking nothing away from our two young protagonists. This was an evening of relaxed, entertaining , crafted and spiritually perceptive, prayerful and provocative acoustic songs. Splitting the evening into two halves of two halves with each co-headliner doing a half per half was a neat setting; the audiences always left wanting a little more.

 

Mullins might be an influence for both but both bring that influence to play in different ways. McVicker will always be remembered for being in the car wreck that took the genius of Rich Mullins from us. The Beatles hung round the neck of Paul McCartney until he embraced it and Mitch accepts the enigmatic, eccentric and imaginative Mullins’ place in his own life and work. Before Mullins tragic death McVicker had had the pleasure of working with him on Canticle Of The Plains a musical where St. Francis Of Assisi takes the form of a cowboy. Tonight McVicker plays Heaven Is Waiting from that show. He also does My Deliverer, for which he won a Dove Award, the opening track from Mullins’ posthumous Jesus Record, tonight’s stripped back version giving it a whole new slant.

 

Yet McVicker will be glad to know that it was his own tunes that caught my attention. His opening Hallelujah is musically and lyrically well removed from Leonard Cohen’s song of the same name and yet it has the same message of recognition and embracing of the Divine. Plastic Horses is the kind of song that allows McVicker to lig about (as us Irish describe it) in very Mullins fashion though McVicker’s use of whistles, bells, boards, shoes and even toy dinosaurs is all done with a little more finesses than was Mullins was guilty of! Most of the songs are prayerful and spiritually introspective with the hope of Renovation; entertaining and spiritually energising for sure.

 

Eric Angus Whyte is a different deal. He builds his songwriting around stunning guitar playing versatility; tonight we hear strains of folk/jazz/celtic/rock. His songs have not God so much on the lines as sneaking out from around the corner and underneath the lines and there is much to ponder whether it’s the political economics of Luddite Sons or the prayer for his soon to be born child on Mercy’s Porch or the introspective philosophising of Landscapes. Whyte starts with Lost In The Song a lovely pop song of sea shore celebration that echoes Mullins’s New England joys on Here In America. He ends with the hammer dulcimer that Mullins made famous with his composition for Belfast Corn Market on a Saturday afternoon, The Beggars and Buskers of Belfast. The evidence continues to grow that Whyte’s Belfast sabbatical while his wife studies is going to bear fruit in a record of fascination and inspiration.

An impromtu encore where the boys duet on Mitch's New Mexico, another nod to Rich and a lovely night of good songs and spiritual ponderings ends well.If Rich is looking down he'd be smiling at another gathering he engineered and inspired.

HORSLIPS with THE ULSTER ORCHESTRA - Belfast, St. Patrick's Day 2011

 

St. Patrick’s Day with Horslips! Oh yeah! Songs of Irish myth and folk lore dressed in a fusion of Irish traditional tunes and seventies rock. If you’re doing St. Patrick’s Day without the message that he brought then it doesn’t get more perfect. It makes you wonder why they never got around to doing a concept album on Patrick himself. Tonight at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast we are treated to a once in a lifetime, Horslips with the Ulster Orchestra taking us through the important core of two of their most conceptualised records; The Táin and The Book of Invasions.

They started with the later work, 1976’s Book Of Invasions. This is an astounding piece of rock record; conceptual, rocking and as accessible as their fusion would ever get. There is an elegiac beauty to the introductory Daybreak and when Johnny Fean’s guitar takes gentle hold I felt a tear. The full on rock of Power and The Glory is what made us dance all night in the seventies. Then one of the greatest riffs in rock was actually signature on Jim Lockhart’s flute in Trouble With a Capital T. Trouble was actually kept back for the second half when The Táin never sounded so good. Charolais and More Than You Can Chew actually sounded great with the Orchestra and Dearg Doom after Trouble was a dramatic way to go out! There were added extras too in the encore of which a rare Rescue Me and the much requested I’ll Be Waiting gave the Orchestra a chance to shine.

That is the question at such a gig. How does it work with the Orchestra? Does it add or take away? For me during The Book Of Invasions set it was almost superfluous but made real impact in the instrumentals off The Táin. It wasn’t like being at a Horslips’ gig as the Fifty-somethings plus that filled the auditorium, having been lucky enough to win the ballot among many thousands for tickets, were not used to sitting. You could see at times the self-discipline being used to remain seated! Yet to get a chance to listen and listen well was a precious moment in our history with this band. These guys are special and have a special place and are performing at the top of their game. It revealed a new appreciation of the sophistication of Horslips’ work, Charles O’Connor’s fiddle and concertina particularly fitting snuggly into the bigger, classical sound. Lockhart too is a supreme musician and Fean’s guitar is simply outstanding. It was a great exercise.

As I wrote on my Facebook status; to be ten feet away from Horslips is as good as St Patrick’s Day gets; when Irish trad. clicks in as during King of The Fairies it’s as good as music gets; and sharing it with my thirteen year old daughter on our first big gig is as good as fatherhood gets! It was a happy St. Patrick’s Day!

link to other Horslips articles on Soul Surmise

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO... LEONARD COHEN@FITZROY – 16.1.11

The Gospel According To... series of events in Fitzroy Presbyterian are done for a plethora of reasons. The most obvious is that the songs of an artist who has a spiritual fascination are wonderful resources to open up the soul to joy, wonder, insight, catharsis and healing. For ten years I did this on my BBC Radio Ulster Radio Show and I believe from the feedback that many nights we did Church and some robust spiritual business. The live format heightens the potency of song and the openness of soul; when the setting is a Church even more! As one of the main players commented “that was the most moving and worshipping "this is not a service" event I have ever been to, am touched very deeply!”

One of the other performers said, “Felt like were in the presence of a wise old saint.” That is indeed how it was. In the midst of some truly magnificent performances of Leonard Cohen songs, readings of his poetry and just a few quotations something spiritual happened that was prophetically edgy and pastorally tender.

The artists, mainly all from Fitzroy, stepped up to the plate and palyed out of their human skin. David Thompson took Bird On The Wire and reworked it, loosening it, bringing in a little Dylan. Gary Bradley’s voice getting stronger every time I hear him and he added a band, some tough guitar and beautiful Caroline Orr backing vocals to Ain’t No Cure For Love and then went solo for Suzanne; both hit the spiritual spot. First outside guest Katie Campbell was the youngest on the bill but the twenty one year old drew quantifiable grace and maturity to her rendition of Song Of Bernadette.

The evening’s special guest, if you like and he probably wouldn’t like it said, was Peter Wilson aka Duke Special. Peter in his own shy persona opened up Cohen’s poetry book, The Book Of Mercy, and read two poems of touching honesty and vulnerability. Cohen’s idea of simply falling into the hands of the Blessed Name comes through in much of his work. Here Wilson himself was honest about his own need for love and he ended his own wee section with what he called his favourite lyric of all time:

“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.”

Wonderfully we went straight into Leonard himself, on DVD sadly, doing Anthem on the 2009 Tour. To see him on the screen, old enough to be our grandfather, charismatic enough to have us gripped and saintly enough to graciously introduce the band was important. We were being tenderly made aware of our cracks and light was seeping through!

As we headed to the altar, Jonee Hicks introduced Story Of Isaac with a brilliant reading from Philip Orr’s new soon to be debuted in Fitzroy play Dresden about the life of Peace Campaigner and Founder of Corrymeela, Ray Davey. It set the song up and the band sailed it home, with some tasty slide from Peter Greer, a big bass groove from Gary Bradley, Chris Blake once all classical now all rock on piano and Matthew Fitch keeping a youthful beat on drums. All it needed was Ms Orr again on bvs and we were elected! As that band left Greer quickly moved to guitar, Caroline remained at mic and was joined by Jacqui Lewis for the Jeff Buckley arranged majesty of Hallelujah. Greer then moved again, this time to piano with Caroline Orr taking centre stage and Norman McKinley adding guitar and vocals on If It Be Your Will.

This last section was like an Old Testament reading, then sermon and finally the sending benediction prayer. The soul got more intensely entwined as we went. All in all, a magic happened that you can call the adrenaline mix of musicians doing their thing or if you are so inclined like those of us who shaped it, “God walked through the room” to quote various members of U2 at various times! And what seemed to be a night of art or some might have degraded to entertainment had become what Church should be; and in Church it was, so praise the Blessed Name!

BLUE RODEO Live At The Errigle Inn, Belfast 28.10.10

 

During a talent exposing support slot Luke Doucet told the crowd Canada had produced their fair share of musical talent. After he mentioned Joni Mitchell and Neil Young there was a string of names shouted from the crowd Bruce Cockburn, Leonard Cohen, Ron Sexsmith, Stephen Fearing... Doucet concluded with a claiming of The Band and went into a song about the night Rick Danko died. Of course the crowd could have shouted Blue Rodeo, the band there were there to see. This is Canada’s top alt. country outfit, twenty five years old with a plethora of platinum albums who are more used to performing before 10,000 across their rather large native country than the couple of hundred in the tiny strangely laid out Errigle Bar in south Belfast. I had never been in a room of more Canadians since I lectured at Regent College, Vancouver in 2005! I doubt of many of the rest of the crowd had been collecting their albums for twenty one years like I have and some I am sure had never heard of them at all.

From the get go they were astoundingly good. The band are as tight as any in the whole wide world and the addition of Luke Doucet on guitar gave a real rock edge. With ex Wilco pedal steel man Bob Egan and keyboardist Michael Boguski jamming freely along, the music ducked and weaved and soared in elongated versions of the originals. Think Gram Parsons fronting Mr Petty’s Heartbreakers and you’re nearly there but a couple of guitar duels between Jim Cuddy and Luke Doucet even conjured Lynyrd Skynyrd for a brief moment! It was all in all a glorious sound.

Now, to be fair, it wasn’t really Blue Rodeo but Jim Cuddy’s Blue Rodeo as the yang to Cuddy yin, Greg Keelor was back in Canada resting with damaged ears. It was like a Beatles show with only McCartney songs, so we got Til I Am Myself Again, Better Off As We Are, It Could Happen To You and 5 Days In May but we missed What Am I Doing Here, Hasn’t Hit Me Yet and Lost Together. Candice and One More Night from their latest release The Things We’ve left Behind stood up well but the highlight for me was Walk Like You Don’t Mind a lovely hymnlike song of resolute defiance to whatever life throws. To see such seasoned professionals working in such a small intimate venue was a treat to behold. Proudly Canadian!