Review --- Patti Smith @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Toronto (March 9, 2013)

This past Saturday night, Patti Smith graced the stage of Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto for a spectacular show, the final event in what had been a whirlwind few days for the so-called 'Godmother of Punk'. It started with two extremely sold out shows billed as An Evening of Words and Song with Patti Smith at the Art Gallery Of Ontario (AGO) this past Thursday. The performance was in conjunction with an exhibition of her black-and-white Polaroid photography entitled Patti Smith: Camera Solo. She apparently also signed copies of her 2010 memoir "Just Kids" at the AGO's gift shop at noon for a few hours, prior to her AGO performance, and then on Friday night attended a sold-out screening of the documentary Patti Smith: Dream of Life at Jackman Hall at the AGO. If punk in the mid-70's was her rise to fame, in the decades that followed she became a true renaissance woman, furthering her artistry in not just music, but poetry, writing, and photography. Frankly, I originally wasn't planning to go to any of these events since I wasn't that acquainted with her music but when Collective Concerts, at the last minute, released a handful of tickets for her show at Queen Elizabeth Centre, I decided that as a music fan owed it to myself to check out a musical icon.

The date of the show, March 9, was a meaningful one as it being the date that her friend photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (whose photos of her became the covers for the Patti Smith Group LP) passed away in 1989, and so the show was in tribute to him. Originally this show wasn't even on her schedule, as Patti herself mentioned during the show, but then she decided that rather than go back to New York to play the tribute show, why not just stay in Toronto for it. Of course the audience responded gleefully to this. March 9 was also an important date for Patti as she mentioned it was also the day she met the true love of her live, Fred 'Sonic' Smith (ex-MC5) with whom she had two children, her son Jackson and daughter Jesse, who she performed with this night on guitar and piano respectively. Joined by Tony Shanahan on bass guitar and backup vocals, Patti and her three band mates performed an almost two-hour set of Patti Smith favourites and later songs, including a bunch from her 2012 release entitled Banga. Interspersed throughout the night, Patti graciously offered us some beautiful poetic readings which never felt out of place.

What probably isn't apparent, if you've read this far, was how damn charming and full of humour Patti was. Her love for Fred was on full display as she revealed that she wrote many songs about him. She told us the back story of how she finished writing the lyrics for the verses to her biggest hit "Because The Night", a song for which had been co-written by Bruce Springsteen - the back story involving Patti waiting for a 7:30 phone call from Fred which didn't happen so she decided to listen to the tape that Jimmy Iovine had been bugging her to listen to and see what she could do to complete it. She bantered with the audience on occasion like when she told the audience that she wrote several songs using the D chord, to which an audience member yelled out 'We like D' and to which Patti responded in return, well then we were about to get 6 1/2 minutes of it. Earlier in the night, an audience member giddily yelled out that she wanted to stand up, I guess hoping that would prompt the audience or something [it didn't] and when Patti responded for her to get up herself, the audience member and a friend took a spot near the stage, to which Patti jokingly told them that were standing in the $500 spot.

Musically, it was such a tight performance and combined with the clarity of whomever was working the soundboard that night, it was one of the more satisfying auditory experiences I've had the pleasure of hearing. Her son Jackson was very fluid with his guitar lines while her daughter Jesse exemplified a very solid, melodic performance on piano. Bassist Tony Shanahan was pretty much Patti's right hand man, holding down the low-end with his solid bass guitar work and providing enthusiastic background vocals. Patti showed her versatility showing a vulnerability like on her cover of Neil Young's "It's A Dream" during the encore, and previously during the main set exuding a world-weary snarl on "My Blakean Year". Patti had read poetic passages sporadically throughout the night, one of them being in memory of her friend Robert, which then segued appropriately into her heart-aching song tribute to the late Amy Winehouse entitled "This Is The Girl". When the encore ended with her call-to-arms-of-sorts "People Have The Power" with Patti chanting all the powers that we do have, it felt at that moment that anything was possible. This point in her life, as she at once looks back at her career and moves forward with new artistic endeavours, and to see her perform with both her son and daughter on stage, is undeniably a beautiful thing to see. That some of us were fortunate to witness this, we can hold dear.

The Magnetic Fields, Laura Barrett @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Toronto (February 8, 2010)

  Stephen Merritt: photo by Michael Ligon

Update[Feb 17 2010, 12:36 am]: Review now up.

It was a musical epiphany that one evening in the mid-90's that I'd first heard The Magnetic Fields' song "100, 000 Fireflies" on CBC Radio's Brave New Waves. The song's enchanting, delicate female vocals, it's metronic backbeat and simple yet effective piano arrangement, it's hopelessly romantic lyrics - to this day it remains one of my favourite songs ever. Somewhat surprisingly, it took me a while to explore Mr. Merritt's catalogue. Early on, his 6ths project and it's album "Wasps Nest" was a good representation of Merritt's sensisbilities with's it's electro-pop instrumentation, simple yet highly effective melodies and Merritt's skewed romanticism and it featured a range of vocalists that, at the time, were more attractive to me than Merritt's baritone. "Wasps Nests" remains my most listened to and favourite Merritt album ever although with his Merge Records release "Get Lost" I came to appreciate Merritt's baritone much more. It's only in more recent years that I'd gotten around to purchasing his subsequent 6ths release "Hyacinths and Thistles", and other Magnetic Fields albums like "The Wayward Bus/House of Tomorrow", "The Charm of The Highway Strip" and just last year had purchased his triple-album epic "69 Love Songs" while on vacation in Barcelona. Part of me believes that the only thing from diving head first into his ouevre was that he hardly came up to tour in Toronto/Canada. It's nice to cross The Magnetic Fields off my list of bands I hope to see one day as I did last week at Toronto's sold out show at Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

Leading up to The Magnetic Fields' long-awaited and highly anticipated set was opener Laura Barrett. I believe I'd only seen her once live several years back at the Brampton Indie Arts Festival and while I've always appreciated her whimsical vocals, tinker-toy melodies and her identifiable kalimba playing, I don't think I've ever truly grasped her music within my conventional indie-rock upbringing. Expanding her lineup to include Randy Lee on violin, Dana Snell as multi-instrumentalist and on backup vox, and a third gentleman[I apologize, I don't know his name] on glockenspiel, with Laura on vocals and kalimba, there was richness to their overall sound, taking full advantage of the venue's pristine acoustics, at least from where I was sitting. And perhaps it's just me but Laura's vocal phrasing just seems so much stronger - she has a decent range and she holds notes just long enough that lyrics flow one and into each other nicely. I highly commend Laura and her band for performing an understated yet highly confident set. And of course, Laura's quirky humorous banter is always charming.

It's the occasion of The Magnetic Field's recently released album "Realism" that brings the band out of hiding but as it turned out they performed a good selection of songs from many of their past releases including several from Merritt's 6ths project. I'm more in tune with The Magnetic Fields' electro-pop leanings and have even embraced Merritt's baritone and but the acoustic performance for the evening was impeccable. The new album's songs which are based in acoustic instrumentation were superbly performed but it was the older material that garnered the most attention. Stripped down to acoustic instrumentation like cello, banjo, ukele, keys and autoharp, Merritt faves like "You and Me and The Moon", or 6ths songs like "Falling Out Of Love With You" and "Movies In My Head" were still indentifiable and highly enjoyable. The most enjoyable element perhaps(aside from Stephen's droll banter) were the vocals, from Merritt's baritone to Claudia Gonson's airy vocals and Shirley Simms twang-inflected singing style. The crowd itself was as sedate as they come - no spontaneous singing or clapping from what I remember - but still I had such a large impression that the crowd was intensely enjoying themselves (the between song crowd reaction of course was a dead giveaway). Merritt in his Ralph Lauren polo cable-knit sweater and kaki baseball cap, and his band members conservatively dressed, looked more like a college study group than a band. Merritt's onstage demeanor is more that of arrogant, non-chalance but on the other hand his dry wit and droll sense of humour expressed during spontaneous moments of banter were never in question. Yes, looks can be deceiving and The Magnetic Fields are prime examples of that. I'd no sooner go more into more hyperbole but let's just say the evening was outstanding. My one lone criticism was the last song of the encore and the night, "100 000 Fireflies" with the band performing an adequate acoustic rendition, though far less superior than the song's original studio version. Hey, the fact that we got the song at all made me extremely happy.

Chromewaves, Much Music, and chartattack have reviews and photos from the show.

Photos: The Magnetic Fields, Laura Barrett @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Toronto (February 8, 2010)
MySpace: Laura Barrett
MySpace: The Magnetic Fields

Echo & The Bunnymen @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto (October 20, 2009)

Update [Oct27/09, 11:50 pm]: Wonderful show by Echo and The Bunnymen last week which was hard to put into words until now, but here I go finally.

I've been basking in the dreamy memories of Echo and The Bunnymen's performance last week at Queen Elizabeth Theatre to perform their classic fourth album, 1984's "Ocean Rain" with an orchestra in tow. It was a mini-orchestra about 9 or 10 members strong complete with conductor and while it doesn't even come close to the 35-member orchestra that participated in the recording of the original studio album, it was as close to the real thing as I could have imagined. I have vague memories of seeing the music video for "The Killing Moon" on Much Music or hearing the song on CFNY back in the 80's but I'd only acquired a vinyl copy of "Ocean Rain" back in the 90's[which has multiplied into several more copies I'd picked up on the cheap - and no I don't plan to get rid of them or sell them]. I upgraded to a CD copy which I picked up at the Flagship Sam The Record Man before it closed but it was only last year that I'd really obsessed about it when I'd just about christened my new Zune mp3 player with it[along with a few other albums] and had it on repeat for the whole summer. It was a real treat to hear the album live with an orchestra as it was fully intended to be heard.

Before the piece de resistance "Ocean Rain" portion of the evening, the band warmed up the crowd with a 'hits' set. Brief as it was, the setlist touched on their first three albums "Crocodiles", "Heaven Up Here" and "Porcupine" as well as several latter day songs including a couple from their most recent album "The Fountain". I was just so glad to hear key tracks like "Rescue", "Bring On The Dancing Horses"(off of "Songs To Learn and Sing"), and "The Cutter" the latter prompting some a fit of selective dancing in the audience, all swaying arms and moving side to side as if it were the 80's all over again. I must mention that the attendance was comprised of many fans 3o years of ag and up, myself included, so no doubt there was a nostalgic element to the show. As I'd heard the older material, I realized how well it's held up, and while lead vocalist Ian McCulloch is sounding a little gravelly-voiced, he's still sounding much like his old self while guitarist Will Sargeant supple guitar playing is still a joy to hear. But as latter day tracks like the stupendously infectious "Stormy Weather"(off of "Siberia") had shown, Echo continue to be relevant also. As musically superb as it was up to that point, it was easy to forgive them for not being the most animated bunch. Although such presentation did in a sense help to uphold a mystique of a band that I'd for the most part visualized as stark, mysterious figures I'd seen them on their early album covers. However, once the perpetually-sunglass-wearing Mr. McCulloch had spoke a few words, I'd realized he was pretty much a regular Joe, especially as I recalled gave a shout out to his hometown of Liverpool, England, then said something about football, which prompted an audience member to stand and show his jersey [which I presume was maybe, Manchester United?].

After a 20 minute intermission, and as the excitement in the audience was about to burst, the band and orchestra took the stage and dove right into "Silver", the first track off of "Ocean Rain". But man those strings, oh those glorious strings. It was pure heaven. As the band performed, the audience's eyes were drawn to the black and white images of the band in their hey day, projected behind the band who for the most part stood in shadow or dim lighting for most of the evening. There's something very poignant about seeing photos of bands in their youth although perhaps none more poignant than seeing photos of former member Les Pattinson or the late Pete De Freitas which drew an extra response from the crowd. "The Killing Moon" was obviously the 'hit' everyone was waiting for and was hard for me not to sing a long at times. Front to back, it's such a terric album but hearing "Crystal Days", "My Kingdom" and "Seven Seas" were my particular favourites. While the original album was barely 40 minutes it was pretty obvious that the band might come back for a few more, and come back they did, performing a couple more including their big hit "Lips Like Sugar", revved up in the guitars it seemed for the new millenium but drawing me instantaneously back to 1987 when I was an awkward teen obsessed with music and bands like Echo and The Bunnymen, The Smiths, Jesus and Mary Chain and New Order. Some things never change.

Check out a review and photos of the show over at Chromewaves.

Photos: Echo & The Bunnymen @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto (October 20, 2009)
Myspace: Echo & The Bunnymen