Gig: Diamond Rings

Diamond Rings

Toronto Public Library (Parkdale Branch). Friday, October 8, 2010.

Down into Parkdale on a Friday evening for another library show hosted by the wonderful people in the excellent Make Some Noise program.¹ Given the performer, I was sort of expecting a giant crowd and got there early to find it pretty quiet. Luckily Av. had made the same assumption, so there was someone to kill time with as we tried to guess which of these Parkdalians were working as security guards at this library branch, which were wearing security guard uniforms because they were on their way to a security guard job elsewhere and which ones just liked wearing security guard uniforms. Meanwhile, the final touches on a nifty decorating job were being put in place by Tasseomancy's Romy and Sari Lightman, with some flowers and plenty of candles and tealights adding some ambiance. At the centre was John O'Regan's guitar case, filled with some of his favourite books from the surrounding library shelves.²

Once the library's usual patrons were replaced by those out for the concert, Diamond Rings emerged in a sleeveless shirt and purple scarf — a slightly stripped-down version of his usual glam getup to suit the relaxed environment of the concert. Instead of his usual get-dancing workout, this was planned as a stripped-down acoustic affair, with O'Regan modelling it after Nirvana's MTV Unplugged set, which he admitted he had been watching repeatedly instead of practising. He even went to the trouble of shopping around to get the same style of acoustic guitar microphone as used in that set, to the disdain of the music store clerks who insisted on telling him it wasn't a very good microphone.³

O'Regan was clearly happy to be playing at his own local branch, even if the now smooth-running Diamond Rings productions were upended for the new arrangements. He started with what I'm assuming is a new song ("I'm holding you up like you were holding me up/ like you were holding me up before") followed by "It's Not My Party", which worked very well in this format. With the candles' glow casting shadows as O'Regan chatted about the excellent apple he'd found that day, it felt like a super-intimate show. There was a good mix in the crowd, with the sort of familiar faces you might see at a Diamond Rings show supplemented by a contingent of kids and parents.

Putting down the guitar, O'Regan moved over to his keyboard for "Give It Up", and would switch back and forth throughout the set. In another nod to Unplugged, O'Regan paid tribute to some of his influences, covering a couple songs by his friends, including PS I Love You's "Actually (I Am a Monster Now)" and Emma McKenna's "Slow the Moon". And he also kept pondered aloud on his considerations on how to recast the songs for this format — commenting on "Show Me Your Stuff"'s rap, "how do we do that, without a beat, in the library? And I think the answer is, you kinda don't. But I don't take no for an answer, so I'm going to give it my best try." At the end he laughed at the slightly tenuous results, commenting "maybe we'll save that for the Plugged album."

Although seeing O'Regan playing these songs without the dance-y trappings seems like a novelty now, it's worth remembering that this is how the whole thing started — a guy playing some catchy songs on an acoustic guitar. Regardless of the technology being used, it was those songs and the personality behind them that makes Diamond Rings work. And while this setup might not have the zazz of the full DR experience, it was a really enjoyable as a one-time special occasion.

A couple selections from this set — check out a stripped-down original or one of the covers.

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¹ For those not yet in the know, not only does the library put on some good concerts, but they are committed to collecting local independent music. The library now has hundreds of CD's in their local music collection that anyone with a library card can take out.

² I spotted 1984, the Great Gatsby, The Outsider, Leviathan, Women Who Run With Wolves and Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women in case anyone was hankering to start a Diamond Rings book club.

³ And indeed, when the mic slipped off the guitar during "Something Else", O'Regan muttered, "sorry Kurt."