The World of Slide Guitar (feat. Sonny Landreth Band with Cindy Cashdollar / The Campbell Brothers Band / Daniel Lanois)
Luminato Festival. Yonge-Dundas Square. June 7, 2009.
On J.'s suggestion, decided to head down to Dundas Square to check out Daniel Lanois. Looking up what else was on offer at the "World of Slide Guitar", thought that The Campbell Brothers might be worth checking out, do went on down a little early. For some reason, things were running an hour behind the posted schedule, so I ended up catching pretty much all of the Sonny Landreth Band with Cindy Cashdollar. Which, observed from the edge of the square, was pleasant in that bar-band rockin' kind of way.
Met up with J. & J. just as The Campbell Brothers Band were taking the stage, and we moved in for a slightly closer look. Billed as exponents of the "sacred steel" style, combining gospel songs within a bluesy musical framework, the band were certainly virtuosos. All of their selections were given extended treatments, with scorching solos aplenty, including guest appearances from the musicians that had already been on the stage. This was all slickly enjoyable, and wildly popular with the crowd. Perhaps it was just that I was feeling mildly under-caffeinated that it didn't make that much of an impact on me — but it may also have been the fact that I was kinda hoping for more sacred and less steel. The final number, with a jump-out-of-your-seat-and-testify vibe, put things closer to the mark I'd been seeking. More "rock" than "Rock of Ages" in the final analysis, but I guess that's okay too.
After that, Daniel Lanois was a shot of something else. Taking to the stage only with the accompaniment of a bassist to begin with, they settled into a lengthy improvised piece that would have sat well alongside, say, something from Kranky Records. After the feel-good populism of the previous acts, this felt really different and exciting. The piece lasted for about twenty-five minutes before Lanois moved over to the pedal steel and did a couple ambient/country pieces evoking with work with Eno on the Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks album. Well-suited for the cement moonscape of Dundas Square, and as he was crouched over his pedal steel, barely visible past the crowd, it felt like the concert had collapsed into something more like an audio installation on a massive scale, and, for a brief moment, everything felt a little bit serenely altered. Very nicely done.
The second half was more conventionally "rock", and while good stuff, didn't have that same pleasantly dislocating quality, aiming more towards ragged glory. Bringing out a drummer to accompany him, Lanois started with a casual, slowly-unfolding take on "The Maker" and moved on through a few more of his own compositions. The Square, which had been pretty full at the end of the Campbell Brothers, had cleared out a fair amount by the end of Lanois' seventy-five minutes, but that probably had as much to do with a dour grey sky and bitingly cold wind as much as his sounds. I thought it was a real treat — that first half moreso, but still left a warm glow against the cold evening as we fled the square before the free country line dance lessons could begin.
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