The C is for Cure (matinée) (feat. Snowblink / Kith & Kin / The Deeep / Steven McKay)
The Music Gallery. Saturday, January 29, 2011.
This was, first and foremost, a concert that no-one wished was necessary. The sudden and shocking christmastime news that Bruce Peninsula vocalist/guitarist Neil Haverty had been diagnosed with leukemia felt like a blow — considering the vitality with which he always conducted himself it was a sobering moment of mortality even for anyone who knew him only as a fan. So I could only imagine the how it must have felt for his family, friends and bandmates. Besides playing alongside Haverty in Bruce Peninsula, Matt Cully was also his room-mate, a closeness which galvanized into putting together this day-long pair of shows as a fundraiser. The ticketed evening show would be more of a regular concert, pulling in some big-name friends, but the matinée was more of a friends-and-family affair.
It was also pretty rigourously all-ages, with babies and elders mixing in much greater numbers than you would normally find at a show. In fact, as I entered through the Fellowship Room, I was surprised at the robust turnout for a daytime gig. Two walls of the room were taken up with tables filled with food and crafts, all being sold as part of the fundraising effort, and the event very much had the feeling of an extended family gathering. There was even a poster-sized open letter from Haverty, explaining that because of his treatment schedule he wasn't able to be present, but expressing his thankfulness at the support he had received.
Heading into the sanctuary, I found the pews to be fairly full as well. It turned out I had missed Lake Vernon Drowning who had opened things up, but I did manage to catch most of Steven McKay's set.
I suspect that the Bruce Peninsula drummer is not a wild man of rock'n'roll, given how his solo songs tend to celebrate small domestic pleasures — sentiments like "we all need more soup on Sundays / we all need more movie nights" are not the stuff of outré hedonism. "Emma Comes Home", another one of those small-pleasures songs describing his joy in anticipating his wife returning from a trip, had the crowd clapping along to the song's coda.
Friendship is another value quietly appreciated in his songs, and "Andy's House" (about teenaged hanging out) even passingly celebrated the day's hero: "Boyce and Neil / sex appeal / is really rare."
"We weren't sexy guys," McKay explained in reference to that line. But he managed to raise some knowing laughs in the room when he told how Haverty had misheard the line as the more flattering "voice of Neil / sex appeal / is really rare" — so as a tribute, the band sang it that way.
As was the case with every time I'd seen McKay play, there was a slightly-shuffled lineup of friends playing alongside him. The most essential of which were stalwart backing vocalists Allie Hughes and Alex Samaras, both extraordinary singers who embroidered McKay's more basic baritone. Alongside them were Samir Khan on bass and Thomas Gill on guitar, neither of whom I'd seen backing McKay before, but their presence was no surprise given their participation in some other overlapping projects.
Given that McKay's songs could be as reliable (or dull) as the everydayness of his subjects, it's a testament to the power of the musicians that he plays with that they instead evoke the quiet magic of shared moments. The accompaniment (and especially the soaring vocals) led one habitué of the Music Gallery to comment to me afterwards that this might have been one of the best-sounding sets ever to rise to the Music Gallery's churchy rafters.
Listen to a track from this set here.
The middle act of the afternoon was sonically the odd band out, but The Deeep are still well within the same orbit of friends and musical collaborators as the rest of the performers.1 Echoing their earlier performance in the Music Gallery's courtyard, they once again brought a backdrop to put behind them on stage. But in the half-year since, the trio of musicians have come to sound a lot less like a project and more like a band. Souping up their sound, Wolfgang Nessel now had a bass, along with his array of samplers and other sonic toys, while Victoria Cheong was more tightly integrated as a part of the musical soundscape. Both worked in quilting together a patchwork of warm raggamuffin drones to serve as the palatte upon which Isla Craig — another in a string of astounding singers connecting the day's bands — could loop and layer her vocals.
As the mix of one-bar reggae loop, soaring synth line and looped vocals built up, a few of the older crowd members headed out to the Fellowship Room. Those that remained mostly leaned back and soaked up the grooves, three extended tracks, with statement-of-purpose and 12" single track "Mudd" sprawling out at the centre of it all.
Matt Cully, who had also been acting as the day's MC, ended his introduction of Kith & Kin by making a special appeal for quiet. Given that the trio's music is mostly a capella, any competing noise would definitely stand out. Composed of Bruce Peninsula's Ivy Mairi joined by the mother/daughter team of Kathleen McDonnell and Martha Farquhar-McDonnell, Kith & Kin play songs from the folk tradition. Some, like "Morning Tears", have passed through hands like Appalachian singer Jean Ritchie.
With all the tricks and noises that technology can bring to bear, I'm sometimes taken aback at how unadorned human voices added together can effortlessly create complicated structures of striking beauty, such as when the trio overlapped in and out of the round of an old Shaker work song, or a chillingly-beautiful version of the old sea shanty "Grey Funnel Line". Stunning stuff. For variety, there was one song accompanied by a hundred-year-old banjo, as well as a single original composition that saw Isla Craig return to the stage to duet with Mairi.
The group usually performs at christmastime, so this one involved finding a few new tunes for their repertoire. I'm as secular and un-xmas-y as they come, but after this I could easily see myself joining them at their next Wassail.
That set was followed by an emotional gathering on stage, as Neil Haverty's family passed along Neil's thanks as well as their own gratitude for the support they'd received. That set the stage for the matinée's finale, another band based around a radiant voice. Snowblink is an excellent band inasmuch as pretty much every time I see them I'm struck anew by how good they are. That's certainly a function of Daniela Gesundheit's vocals2, but it also reflects how her and musical partner Dan Goldman are continually striving to surround her voice with new arrangements. Here. the band led off with signature song "Rut & Nuzzle", as usual with some bells handed to out the crowd jangling along plus, for added audience participation, a well-timed crying baby joining in at just the right time.
They kept the focus off themselves in a quick set, playing just three songs before Gesundheit called up members of Bruce Peninsula "past, present and future" and spread them out along the stage. She led them in a slow, simmering version of Bruce Peninsula's "Crabapples" and "Satisfied". The song was mournful and filled with sad longing rather than the urgent energy of Neil Haverty shouting how he had never been satisfied. In fact, comparing this to my memory of Haverty running past me from the stage and dashing around through the crowd in this very same venue was a potent blow, and definitely the emotional climax of the whole day.
Listen to a track from this set here.
After that, a bit of a break was welcome as the crowd cleared out, allowing a whole other set of bands to prepare for the evening concert.
1 The extra "e" is for "extra friendship".
2 Daniela Gesundheit is a long-standing member of Bruce Peninsula's choir.
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