Gig: Amy Millan

Amy Millan / Bahamas

The Mod Club. Wednesday, October 14, 2009.

I was a bit sad that other engagements kept me from going to see Amy Millan at the Harbourfront in July — her previous turn there in the summer of '06 was a fondly-remembered show. So it was pleasing that a club gig came along to make up for it. Thus found myself in a pleasantly full Mod Club on a Wednesday night.

Looking back over the crowd, H. adroitly commented, "these are the people who don't go to gigs every week." It was also a more female-skewing crowd than I'm used to, clumps of women out together and the occasional glazed-eyed guys with that dragged-along look — sorta the inverse of most gigs. Which, from a behavioural standpoint, is totally fine by me: even if there were more people around me singing along during the main set, there was a paucity of belligerent doofuses.¹

Opening things up was Bahamas, current nom de geurre of Afie Jurvanen, mostly familiar these past few years as a sideman to a who's who of the local rock scene, including a substantial stint in Feist's touring band. Last time I'd seen him up front was a while back — August 2005, with his old crew Paso Mino, opening for Jason Collett on a night they were also serving as his backing band — and, strangely enough, in this same venue. To be honest, my opinion at the time was that as a frontman he made a good touring guitarist, and besides seeing him now-and-again in other people's bands, I hadn't given much thought to his own stuff 'til some good notices started appearing for his Pink Strat alb.²

Playing solo (though apparently these days he's usually backed by a drummer), Jurvanen had his mellow on — loose and chatty in a slightly blazed-out "niiiiiice" kind of way as he played a forty-minute set of classical singer-songwriter hurtin'-on-the-inside, poppy-on-the outside songs. His lyrical sense is sorta maudlin, but in a self-knowing way that allows him to undercut it with humour, which also came out in his amusing chatty commentary between songs. He was appreciative, surveying the quietly respectful, female-heavy crowd: "Normally I play at these roadhouses at Dundas and Ossington, where all these skinny jeans hang out, just drinking their Jägerbombs and shit... this is nice!" It was, on the whole, a winning set, even if a bit goofy, demonstrating that Jurvanen has progressed a fair chunk in his songwriting and presentation — obviously he's picked up a thing or two from the people he's been working with.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Having given a few spins through Masters of the Burial, Amy Millan's new album, I was left with a pleasant but indistinct impression — as if afterwards I realized I'd enjoyed something, but I was rather fuzzy on the details. I was curious to see if some live energy would sharpen my impressions any. The band entered onto a stage decorated with roses heaped across a keyboard and littered across the floor, opening with "Some Day", a gospel bluegrass mourning song, and a dedication to Doug Campbell, before easing into "Old Perfume", complete with dual trombone accompaniment. The band's sound was, unsurprisingly, warm and rootsy — more acoustic than electric. There was a drum kit on the stage, but it sat unused for most songs, one band member or another rotating back there as necessary. It was pretty much an all-star band, the same crew that'd worked on her album, including Dan Whiteley (masterful mandolin and guit), Christine Bougie (lap steel, some drums), Darcey Yates (bass) and Doug Tielli (banjo, guit, keyb).

Millan seemed to be rising to her opener's challenge, boosting her onstage banter and throwing in several amusing monologues in between songs, sometimes even overshadowing them. A story about her grandmother's infidelities illustrated "Lost Compass" and brought the song's conclusion ("love is shady") into relief, and yet the story was still the more interesting part. I must confess that at a couple points Gene Siskel's maxim³ crossed my mind — were these songs, in fact, better than the banter in between them? In terms of the vibe of the whole night, the music felt, at a couple points, almost extraneous. But those were transitory feelings, and in the end the music mostly paid its freight as well. There were several good performances here including particularly strong readings of "Baby I", "Bury This" and "Towers".

Unsurprisingly, the crowd went up in a roar when Feist popped out for some backing vox on "Bruised Ghosts" to close out the set, hamming it up on stage, and grinding up to Millan with a rose in between her teeth. A high-energy burst of excitement to end the main set. After, the crowd was soothed with a solo mandolin instrumental number by Dan Whiteley, filled with fast pickin' and lightning runs, before Millan and band re-emerged and played "Skinny Boy", the song that the crowd had been shouting out the most by name. The night ended on "Day to Day", perhaps Masters' outstanding track, just voice and a spare drum beat supplied by Evan Cranley. So that's a lot of ground covered: sixteen songs and a fair bit of banter, and all packed into sixty-five minutes. Perhaps ultimately, my reaction to the show was similar to how I felt about the album — enjoyable in a non-specific, not-overwhelming way.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ The flipside of that, though, is that in this kind of crowd I feel like there's a greater chance that I'm the obstacle blocking someone else's view of the show.

² For the record, the titular guitar was not in evidence on this night.

³ "I always ask myself, 'Is the movie that I am watching as interesting as a documentary of the same actors having lunch together?'".