This weekend we (Andrew and I) and a friend of ours went to the Kaleido Festival, an outdoor street festival held on 118th Ave. It was our friend who suggested it, she wanted to go see the closing band Dehli 2 Dublin and was rounding up friends to attend. Since I'm pretty much always up for live music (despite having never really heard the band--but had heard of) we decided to go. Thankfully the good weather we've been having continued into Saturday so we only needed a comfortable hoodie to keep us warm as the sun went down (apparently last year was rather cold and everyone huddled around the bonfire). A large stage was set up in what I think was a parking area, with several rows of bleachers arrange out in front.
We got there a little after 6:00 pm and caught the tail end of Joel Lavoie's performance. He's an acoustic guitarist in, what I'd be inclined to say is, a soft rock style. I certainly found it easy listening and enjoyed the performance. At this point there weren't a lot of people around, but the crowd was appreciative with a few people even getting up to dance. An 'in between act' filled in a few moments between Lavoie and the next act, the Secretaries. I forget what they were called, but they were meant to be a sort of incognito performance where one guy pretended to be a sound check guy, while a group member sitting in the audience started yelling at him for taking to long and holding up the show. It turned out there were maybe a dozen or so group members sitting in the audience and they all got up and joined in a rap about how everyone thinks they're a sound technician. It was funny, but went on a trifle long for my taste.
Although I'd never heard of the Secretaries, I rather enjoyed them (and as it turned out the parents of the lead singer were sitting in front of us). They were accompanied by the Brass Holes (2 trumpets and a tuba) who also turned out to be their back up dancers--it was quite hilarious. They mostly just sort of swayed back and forth 'Diana Ross and the Supremes'-style, but it was made the more amusing because it was three guys. They also occasionally played tambourine. The bass player and turned out to be Colleen Brown. I've never seen Colleen Brown before, but I'd certainly heard her played on the CBC. As with most music I listen to, I have no idea what the musicians actually look like. I tend to go to a lot of classical concerts, not rock/folk/jazz whatever concerts, so most of my favourite musicians could walk by me on the street and I'd have no idea. That's probably still the case for Colleen, even though I enjoyed her performance and valiant effort to continue singing even after swallowing a bug.
The follow act wasn't my favourite. It was some sort of fusion jazz. At one point Andrew and I got up and checked out a nearby bakery which turned out to be delicious (I got a slice of cheese cake, Andrew an eclaire). We did dance a bit during this performance since they were turning out good beats. The warm-up before Delhi-2-Dublin was a local Japanese-style drumming group called Kita No Taiko. As it turns out, one of the drummers is also a Firefly student and is taking a 3-night acrobatics course with us. She explained that the show as a bit weird for them, as they weren't expecting to be preforming outside, and then were required to preform on the space in front of the stage rather than on the stage (so that Delhi-2-Dublin could set up). We enjoyed their show anyway. The drumming is quite energetic with lots of dancing around, switching drums and deadly precision.
The last act was Delhi-2-Dublin and by this time the concert area was packed. As the deejay introduced them, people were filling the aisle to get into the dance area at the front then flooded the space when the band came on. Delhi-2-Dublin is a Vancouver based band, made up of 5 members (4 guys, 1 girl), performing on a range of instruments that include guitar, sitar, violin/fiddle, 2 types of ethnic drums (the names I've forgotten), one guy handles sound mixing, and one guy does the lead singing. As you might guess, they have an eclectic sound that probably most profoundly borrows from Celtic and Indian music. They were super fun and super energetic. I'd wanted to dance, but when I saw the crowd go for the dance floor I was momentarily disappointed. This didn't last long since pretty much everyone in the rows in front of us also stood up to dance--problem solved. The played for seventy-five minutes pretty much none stop. There were a couple of slower songs in the middle where not all the band was required so the unused members slipped off for a quick break.
All-in-all a good show, and a pretty good night.
Ciao,
Andrea
Showing posts with label concert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label concert. Show all posts
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Danny Michel, live at the Arden Theatre
Andrew and I first heard about Danny Michel a couple of years ago when he toured with Stuart Mclean's Vinyl Cafe Christmas Show. He only played two songs (one being Tennessee Tobacco--which I love), but I (and I assume Andrew too) were impressed. He's also from Kitchener, Ontario, which helped in endearing himself to us as Kitchener-ites living in Edmonton. Unfortunately, I didn't ever get around to buying any of his CDs, although I frequently thought I should. When the CBC changed the programming format I started to hear more of Danny and I'm always happy to hear his stuff on the radio. Therefore, when I discovered he was playing a show in St. Albert (I can't even remember now how I found out), I was excited and immediately asked Andrew if he wanted to go. He did.
Before the show on Friday (Sept 25th) we'd hoped to dine (pig-out) at one of the local Ukrainian church's perogy dinners, unfortunately the line-up was huge, and we arrived too late to wait it out. Instead we drove to St. Albert and ended up eating at a Ric's Grill, which was okay, but not spectacular by any means (we'd never been to St. Albert's before and didn't know where things were so we went with what was close by the theatre). We went directly from dinner to the show; however, found ourselves sitting through what must have been 15 minutes of promos for the Arden Theatre's upcoming season. I understand that it's a relatively small theatre/city and so they really need to push the shows scheduled for the year, but it was a bit annoying to sit through. I felt like it pushed a little beyond "wetting the appetite with anticipation" and into "your annoying the hell out of me, just get to it" territory.
At any rate, after the promotional talk and the promotional video, Danny came out. It was just him and his guitar, no back up or anything. He strode out onto the stage with a mug (presumably of water...but one never knows) and a sheet of paper with his set list, and got down to it. Danny's a highly entertaining performer. It's sort of like he's had 10 extra-strength cups of coffee before hand, as he constantly strums at his guitar as he talks to the audience in between songs, and while he's playing he tends to dance around, stand tall and crouch down low as he plays depending on the dynamics of the music. Danny told us numerous stories throughout the evening, prefacing songs with explanations of how they came to be (which at least I find interesting). Of particular interest was the explanation surrounding the song Whale of a Tale, written after meeting a guy in a bar (in Kitchener) who had "done everything." The song was rather hilarious on its own, but shortly after beginning Danny forgot the order of the lyrics, had to stop, and someone from the audience shouted out the forgotten lines. Awesome.
Throughout the concert Danny performed a mixture of his older music (many of which I recognized from the radio) and stuff from his new album, Sunset Sea. As I mentioned before, it was just Danny, all by himself, so in order to fill in the gaps normally taken care of by a band, he used a recording machine controlled by a foot pedal. I saw this technique first used by Owen Pallett, also at a Stuart McLean concert. The artist plays a few bars into their recorder then they can loop the track throughout their performance to make it sound as though they're being accompanied by another musician. It's possible to record multiple tracks and have them played back simultaneous, but I'm not sure how many are can be run at one time. After the show Danny came out for a bit and talked with audience members who were still mulling about. We got the CD we purchased autographed.
A good night all-in-all. We even got home at reasonable hour, which was a blessing since we had our last major training run before the marathon to attend to the next day.
Ciao,
Andrea
Before the show on Friday (Sept 25th) we'd hoped to dine (pig-out) at one of the local Ukrainian church's perogy dinners, unfortunately the line-up was huge, and we arrived too late to wait it out. Instead we drove to St. Albert and ended up eating at a Ric's Grill, which was okay, but not spectacular by any means (we'd never been to St. Albert's before and didn't know where things were so we went with what was close by the theatre). We went directly from dinner to the show; however, found ourselves sitting through what must have been 15 minutes of promos for the Arden Theatre's upcoming season. I understand that it's a relatively small theatre/city and so they really need to push the shows scheduled for the year, but it was a bit annoying to sit through. I felt like it pushed a little beyond "wetting the appetite with anticipation" and into "your annoying the hell out of me, just get to it" territory.
At any rate, after the promotional talk and the promotional video, Danny came out. It was just him and his guitar, no back up or anything. He strode out onto the stage with a mug (presumably of water...but one never knows) and a sheet of paper with his set list, and got down to it. Danny's a highly entertaining performer. It's sort of like he's had 10 extra-strength cups of coffee before hand, as he constantly strums at his guitar as he talks to the audience in between songs, and while he's playing he tends to dance around, stand tall and crouch down low as he plays depending on the dynamics of the music. Danny told us numerous stories throughout the evening, prefacing songs with explanations of how they came to be (which at least I find interesting). Of particular interest was the explanation surrounding the song Whale of a Tale, written after meeting a guy in a bar (in Kitchener) who had "done everything." The song was rather hilarious on its own, but shortly after beginning Danny forgot the order of the lyrics, had to stop, and someone from the audience shouted out the forgotten lines. Awesome.
Throughout the concert Danny performed a mixture of his older music (many of which I recognized from the radio) and stuff from his new album, Sunset Sea. As I mentioned before, it was just Danny, all by himself, so in order to fill in the gaps normally taken care of by a band, he used a recording machine controlled by a foot pedal. I saw this technique first used by Owen Pallett, also at a Stuart McLean concert. The artist plays a few bars into their recorder then they can loop the track throughout their performance to make it sound as though they're being accompanied by another musician. It's possible to record multiple tracks and have them played back simultaneous, but I'm not sure how many are can be run at one time. After the show Danny came out for a bit and talked with audience members who were still mulling about. We got the CD we purchased autographed.
A good night all-in-all. We even got home at reasonable hour, which was a blessing since we had our last major training run before the marathon to attend to the next day.
Ciao,
Andrea
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
First real rock concert: Green Day, July 6, 2009
I realize that for a 28-year old I'm a bit odd. The number of Symphony-Orchestra concerts I've attended greatly overshadows the number of rock-popular music concerts I've attended. I can count the latter on one hand: Paul McCartney (awesome), BNL (loved), Sarah Sleen/Rufus Wainwright (I'd never heard of either of them before I was invited, but highly enjoyed) and now Green Day. Andrew and I are not, in particular, Green Day fans. I like the songs of theirs that I know (mainly those played on the radio), but the only album I have is Warning, which is definitely not their best work. We were offered the tickets by one of Andrew's prof's (who's also the husband of one of my co-workers) as they were unable to use them.
And so we went. And we enjoyed ourselves. I'm not going to dive into an in-depth description of the night's events, since as I've already mentioned, neither Andrew or I are Green Day aficionados nor do I expect are any of my readers. Just a few words:
In general: lots of fireworks, flame bursts and lighting changes. Very cool light-up city scape backdrop.
Green Day itself: Billy Joe Armstrong has a crazy amount of energy and spent a good deal of time running and jumping around the stage and working the audience. He used a little more profanity than I care for, but whatever, this was Green Day, they're supposed to be punk. I also think Billy Joe actually has a pretty good voice with an interesting tone. It's really noticeable in some of their slower songs.
Overall: the atmosphere in Rexall was great. I was a little concerned things could get out of hand, but everyone around us seemed to be enjoying themselves. We were on our feet the whole time and I danced for much of it. Ages ranged from little kids (say 6 years old?) to adults (probably around 40 to 50 year olds).
Finally, some fun things. Several people got pulled up on stage. A couple of little kids came up on at separate times. One led the crowd in hand waving and the other got to squirt people in the mosh pit with a huge water gun. Three people got pulled up to sing different verses of Longview, unfortunately they didn't all sing terribly well. Green Day performed a 50's rock medley including: Shout, Earth Angel and Stand By Me.
We didn't stay right to the bitter end. We decided to leave halfway through the encore in favour of catching the LRT home before the masses descended. Consequentially we missed Good Riddance, which would have brought the total of songs I knew all the words to, up to 2. If given the chance, I would be happy to see Green Day again, although perhaps I'd brush up on their catalog a little more thoroughly before going.
Us waiting to catch the LRT to take us to Rexall Place:
The stage when Green Day first came out.
These pictures were taken off of Andrew's palm, which doesn't have a very powerful camera. Unfortunately we don't have a tiny digital that we could have brought with us.
Ciao,
Andrea
And so we went. And we enjoyed ourselves. I'm not going to dive into an in-depth description of the night's events, since as I've already mentioned, neither Andrew or I are Green Day aficionados nor do I expect are any of my readers. Just a few words:
In general: lots of fireworks, flame bursts and lighting changes. Very cool light-up city scape backdrop.
Green Day itself: Billy Joe Armstrong has a crazy amount of energy and spent a good deal of time running and jumping around the stage and working the audience. He used a little more profanity than I care for, but whatever, this was Green Day, they're supposed to be punk. I also think Billy Joe actually has a pretty good voice with an interesting tone. It's really noticeable in some of their slower songs.
Overall: the atmosphere in Rexall was great. I was a little concerned things could get out of hand, but everyone around us seemed to be enjoying themselves. We were on our feet the whole time and I danced for much of it. Ages ranged from little kids (say 6 years old?) to adults (probably around 40 to 50 year olds).
Finally, some fun things. Several people got pulled up on stage. A couple of little kids came up on at separate times. One led the crowd in hand waving and the other got to squirt people in the mosh pit with a huge water gun. Three people got pulled up to sing different verses of Longview, unfortunately they didn't all sing terribly well. Green Day performed a 50's rock medley including: Shout, Earth Angel and Stand By Me.
We didn't stay right to the bitter end. We decided to leave halfway through the encore in favour of catching the LRT home before the masses descended. Consequentially we missed Good Riddance, which would have brought the total of songs I knew all the words to, up to 2. If given the chance, I would be happy to see Green Day again, although perhaps I'd brush up on their catalog a little more thoroughly before going.
Us waiting to catch the LRT to take us to Rexall Place:
The stage when Green Day first came out.
These pictures were taken off of Andrew's palm, which doesn't have a very powerful camera. Unfortunately we don't have a tiny digital that we could have brought with us.
Ciao,
Andrea
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