It was a quiet night at the Horseshoe Tavern yesterday. Both, opener and headliner delivered solo sets of low-key pop songs that depending on your mood and or energy level could either be entrancing or sleep-inducing. I started out the latter because I've been tired lately but as the evening progressed I found myself quite alert especially for Joe Pernice's terrific set. I thought Alfie was opening the show but it turned out that the opener was Toronto's own Afie. I'd never heard of him but was quite impressed on first listen. Afie sang accompanying himself on electric guitar. Afie had a great articulate singing style and his guitar work was smooth, confident and full-sounding. He reminded me alot of Pete Elkas actually. Without benefit of a backing band, things started to sound a little same-y after a while but overall I admired his unpretentious set of songs. The audience was pretty quiet, something that Afie had commented on several times, but the enthusiatic applause at the end of each song was more than a good indication of our appreciation. Not long after, Mr. Pernice took the stage. Of course, a lot of time wasn't really required to set up Joe's acoustic guitar. I'd seen Joe play as part of The Pernice Brothers back in 2003 when they played Lee's Palace when he had a short clean-cut hairstyle. This time around, he was in full out hoser-mode, with his long, scruffy hair. Joe mentioned that he's been a resident of the fair city of Toronto for the last couple of month's as his wife Laura is Canadian. I'd acutually though he'd been here longer but well, maybe with touring and all, he's probably not actually BEEN here. Now that he's here and there doesn't seem to be any immediate plans for touring, if we're lucky, maybe he'll take up a residency at one of the local live venues. Well, let's hope anyway.
At this point, maybe I should just get to the point: the music. It was just Joe singing along with his acoustic guitar and he played a wonderful set of songs that spanned his career, from early songs like "Silo" and the Olivia Newton John cover "Please Mr. Please" off of The Scud Mountain Boys' "Pine Box", "Penthouse In The Woods" off of The Scud's "Massachusetts", "Bum Leg" off of Joe Pernice's "Big Tobacco", and Pernice Brothers' tracks such as "Baby In Two", "Overcome By Happiness", and "Cronulla Breakdown". Midway through the set he played a cover of The Zombies' "The Butcher's Tale". Interspersed through the set were several new tracks(by my count, I remember 4 new songs) three whose titles were "My So-Called Celibate Life", "There Goes The Sun", and "Pisshole In The Snow". I was hoping for some uptempo Pernice Brothers' tracks such as "Weakest Shade Of Blue", "Working Girls", and "Sometimes I Remember" but unfortunately he didn't play them. This was primarily a sit down performance for Joe and I guess the song selection leaned towards the low-key ones. It would have been interesting to see Joe standing up performing in full Billy Bragg, troubadour-ish style, but well maybe next time. The slight imperfections of Joe's voice balanced quite nicely with his subtle guitar work, and melodically the songs just ached with emotion. I really cannot wait till The Pernice Brothers come back to Toronto...and I'm tempted to drive to Ottawa this July to catch 'em as part of this year's Ottawa Bluesfest. [photos]
:
:
Just thought I'd comment on the Roots Manuva instore at Soundscapes in Toronto this afternoon. After killing some time at the downtown HMV, I jumped onto the TTC, first the subway, then the streetcar, and arrived around the vicinity of Soundscapes at about a quarter to 6pm. There was a lineup to get in and the instore was scheduled for 6pm but unfortunately it didn't start on time. It was probably at least a quarter after 6pm before the lineup started to move in. I wasn't necessarily interested in trying to get a good view of for the performance; I was just happy to have made it into the store. I ended up towards the back of the store. I'd only read some articles about Roots Manuva including an article in last month's Exclaim!. For the instore Roots Manuva aka Rodney Hylton Smith performed with a DJ as well as background vocalist. He has a definite Britishness in his speech and rap sound. The DJ offered up a selection of sultry samples, beats and mixing technique while the background vocalist contributed some modest vocal arrangements(later on on the last song, also providing a totally wicked human beatbox all the while humming a bass line). There was a nice loose vibe to the brief set, with Roots Manuva stopping songs if he messed up, only to try it again and at other times he was pretty humourous, if only for that time he gazed over the audience during the introductory beats of one song and then remarked, "Shit, I missed my cue". Oh, and man, Roots Manuva is one tall dude.[photo from http://../]
No comments:
Post a Comment