Concert Trifecta Post #2 - Old Man Luedecke/Hawksley Workman

I totally intended to do three separate posts for the concert trifecta, but since the last two shows were so close together, I didn't find the time to do so. Here's a merged post instead.

Thursday was a long day at work; it was parent-teacher interviews which meant I spent over twelve hours at school (albeit with an hour mall break to get dinner and buy a new umbrella since I left mine on the bus that morning), yet I was still committed to the trifecta, so at 8:30 pm, I transited to the Dakota Tavern to meet up with Jason to see Old Man Luedecke.

I got there with just enough time to chit chat and grab a beer before the show started at 9 pm. The Dakota Tavern is a small basement bar decorated with a bluegrass/folksy/country theme. In fact, my country friends from back home would probably kill themselves with laugher that I hang out at such places now. Anyway, it was a really fun show. If you want to hear one of my favourite Old Man Luedecke banjo songs, go to his myspace page and listen to "I Quit My Job". It's fun, and a really great listen on days when you are a bit fed up with work. Live vicariously, I say.

Here's a picture from the show.

Yesterday after work, Jason and I drove to Guelph to catch Hawksley Workman at the River Run Centre. We did the same trip in November when we saw Joel Plaskett at the same venue. A lot of artists will do a tour that covers small cities in Ontario, and it's fun to be able to leave the city and catch one of these shows. The River Run Centre is a really nice sit down venue where you have an awesome sight line from anywhere in the theatre. Our seats this time were farther away from the stage than when we saw Joel, but the view was still incredible.

The opener for Hawksley was Oh Susanna. I'm pretty positive that I saw her at the Canadian showcase that I caught at SXSW in Austin with AlieMalie way back when. I have a couple songs of hers, and I really liked her set. It was a bunch of great folksy songs and she has a killer voice. When she sang her last song "Soon the Birds" from her latest album of the same name, I would have to get it because I have a thing for birds.

In between sets, I went to buy the album and ended up buying a lot of merch. I got a Hawksley Tshirt with a wolf on it, because well, I love Hawksley and the image of the wolf brings me back to his (Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves days when I first started listening to his music and catching him live. When I went to get the Oh Susanna album, I loved the matching book bag, and then I could throw in a *purple* (fave colour) Tshirt WITH A BIRD ON IT for an extra $5, I bought everything.

I got the CD signed too! She was standing right by the table, and I'm always a little bit embarrassed about autographs and such, but I would have felt weird not asking since she was right there. I told her I really enjoyed her set, and commented that the design of her new album was super cute. I'm sure I sounded dorky, but earnest, so there you go.

Then it was Hawksley time. Hawksley is one of my all-time favourite artists (I felt the bolding was necessary there). I have been following him for ten years now (it's our anniversary), and I'm sure I've seen him a minimum of fifteen times in that span of time.

This was definitely one of my favourite Hawksley shows of the lot. He played with his long-time pianst, Mr. Lonely, and a drummer, and I found that having three musicians on stage was a great way to showcase his music. He often plays with a full band, which I enjoy, but I felt that a bit less instrumentation allowed Hawksley's voice to shine very well.

Hawksley is the king of stage banter. I don't know how he does it, but he likes to randomly talk about subjects such as hockey cards, elementary school, cats, his family, and more throughout the set. And during his banter he'll go on a tangent within a tangent, but it's just so fun. I love his eccentricity.

Musically, he is phenomenal. His songs are great, and so many of them have special places in my heart. I'm always guaranteed a show full of my favourites, and I always seen to discover a new song when I see him live. This time it was "Lonely People" from his Los Manilicious album that came out a couple of years ago. I didn't recognize it when I heard it, but loved it and noted that I needed to figure out what song it was. When I did, I realized that I didn't listen to it because I don't like how it starts (therefore it would get skipped), but now that I've heard it live, it will find a resurgence in my Hawksley collection.

One of the other things I love about Hawksley (I'll try not to make this post a 10,000 word thesis, I swear) is his multi-instrumentalist talent. He played the guitar for most of the show, but also made it to the drums a few times, broke out a recorder (no joke!), the harmonica, and played with Mr. Lonely on the piano for "Your Beauty Must Be Rubbing Off". After that bit of sheer amazingness, someone from the crowd yelled "that was pretty good!" and Hawskley replied "that's what we're striving for here." It was funny.

It was an amazing show, and I'm thinking Hawksley will probably be working on something new soon since his last albums Meat and Milk are from last year and he's prolific that way.

I'll leave you with for a video of one the songs he played last night: "Oh You Delicate Heart". It's a little bit sad, but I love the video because it's shot in Paris.