Lennie Gallant is someone whose music I fell in love with when he came here for Folk fest many years back. He's a maritime artist with the musical roots that implies, and an Acadian family, so he sings English and French (But not Acadian, alas), and he's a fairly individual songwriter, with an upbeat attitude and a bit of a rock edge. Before the concert I had 4 of his English CDs and one in French.
I posted a mention of this concert to my various friends, saying I was going definitely but wondered if I could get company. I was not really expecting a lot of interest; my usual concert-going person was going to be out of town.
haasiophis pretty much pounced on the spot, reminding me that her family is from PEI, even if her parents and herself did a lot of moving-about and never actually lived there. She also knew his music from having heard his first CD via family, but didn't own it.
So Yay! we went Sunday night, when it was warm for winter, but snowy, and threatening to blow.
So, good, Yes. Worth it, yes. As well as song good energy in the songs he also had a few entertaining stories, a couple of running jokes, and a reasonably friendly way with an audience.
His backing band consisted of two nephews, Jonathon sitting on an interesting percussion instrument whose name I did not get, and Jeremy on some really excellent keyboard. And later a third nephew, I think Calvin, joined him first with a military drum (To close off Wounded, a song about injuries visible and invisible garnered on the front lines) then on guitar and vocals (All of them did backing, but C. did some of the verses.) Said nephew is apparently now a Winnipeg native, so this may have been a special treat for us, I'm not sure.
My favourite story of the night, and one that can be appreciated without need to discuss the music itself. Now, it's been mentioned that one of his CDs got into space (Julie Payette took a copy of "When We Get There" with her to the ISS. He said he was just about done recording his next album and considered offering her an advance copy, bud thought that the album she chose had a rather more optimistic title, since the new Cd was "If We Had a Fire"), but he said that the Gallant family in general seems to be ending up hobnobbing with the literally higher ups.
See, it seems a couple of years back, one of his brothers (Whose name I've lost) was told by a friend, "You're having a ceilidh tonight."
"I am?" said the brother. "Okay. Why am I having a ceilidh tonight?"
"Because Chris Hadfield is in town and he was looking for a place where he could jam with some musicians, and I told him you were having a ceilidh."
"I'm having a ceilidh tonight!"
And at said ceilidh, the other brother (Mark, I think he said) played David Bowie's Space oddity. And Chris Hadfield says, "I love that song. I have to learn to play that song. Can you teach me the chords for that song?"
...
Anyhow, the concert. He started up with Which Way does the River Run? Which is mellow but beautiful. (I'd say overall the first set was a bit more mellow than the second, though anything with Tell Me a Ghost Story and 47 Angels on Her Front Lawn in it is NOT mellow). Things seemed to go up from there. he included two wholly new songs and a couple of which I was unfamiliar (2 Francophone and one from the first album, which I didn't have before the concert).
I held off on getting up until 47 Angels, because it was very much a sit down audience, but then I got up and boogied. I did so only twice before the break, I think, but I was up about every second song in the second set, if I wasn't up for more than one at a time. I was only joined by one person once. I suspect if I'd gone to the front I could have tipped the balance, but if my only choice was to dance where everybody might see me, I'm not doing it. At the back, I could pretend I was all invisible. (Haasiophis was dealing with meds that make her dizzy, so she sat.)
His only stumble was an unexpected and quite loud and clear request for Extraordinary Ordinary Life, which was not on his set list and he hadn't played in a while. I was actually rather impressed, as he worked through the opening chords, then his nephew figured out and remembered the keyboard, and he picked up the lyrics easily enough ... well, until the last verse, where he blanked on the first six words (It's not a short song, this is a very small percentage.)
I was THIS close to running from our spot near the back with the lyric sheet from the CD. But he just finally filled it in with "La la" and kept on.
I think as well as the obvious picks (I like Peter's Dream but not to the degree it's popular: It's #4 on the "top 10 maritime songs of all time" and high up on a number of other such lists) he hit all the songs I personally was most hoping he would hit. He ended the concert officially with "The Band's Still Playing", but the two encore songs (Does anyone ever not play an encore? OTOH, it was a small audience, but many stood) were the Open Window, which I like and had to dance to but wasn't pining for, and Lifeline, which was the main song I really wanted to hear and the one I was this close to hollering at the stage, and was trying to tell myself he'd done everything else I could ask for. Then he introduced it and I just about melted of the happy.
Amusing side note. Haasiophis and I each brought in one CD and left with three. But of a 9 CD repertoire, we both ended up with the same three CDs on hand. (In total, I'm only missing 2 now...)
Lifeline (Embedding disabled, but if you watch one, watch this.)
And this is why this is the one got me dancing.
And this seems sort of wryly appropriate to sneak in. And if you don't know why, you really didn't read the review above...
I posted a mention of this concert to my various friends, saying I was going definitely but wondered if I could get company. I was not really expecting a lot of interest; my usual concert-going person was going to be out of town.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
So Yay! we went Sunday night, when it was warm for winter, but snowy, and threatening to blow.
So, good, Yes. Worth it, yes. As well as song good energy in the songs he also had a few entertaining stories, a couple of running jokes, and a reasonably friendly way with an audience.
His backing band consisted of two nephews, Jonathon sitting on an interesting percussion instrument whose name I did not get, and Jeremy on some really excellent keyboard. And later a third nephew, I think Calvin, joined him first with a military drum (To close off Wounded, a song about injuries visible and invisible garnered on the front lines) then on guitar and vocals (All of them did backing, but C. did some of the verses.) Said nephew is apparently now a Winnipeg native, so this may have been a special treat for us, I'm not sure.
My favourite story of the night, and one that can be appreciated without need to discuss the music itself. Now, it's been mentioned that one of his CDs got into space (Julie Payette took a copy of "When We Get There" with her to the ISS. He said he was just about done recording his next album and considered offering her an advance copy, bud thought that the album she chose had a rather more optimistic title, since the new Cd was "If We Had a Fire"), but he said that the Gallant family in general seems to be ending up hobnobbing with the literally higher ups.
See, it seems a couple of years back, one of his brothers (Whose name I've lost) was told by a friend, "You're having a ceilidh tonight."
"I am?" said the brother. "Okay. Why am I having a ceilidh tonight?"
"Because Chris Hadfield is in town and he was looking for a place where he could jam with some musicians, and I told him you were having a ceilidh."
"I'm having a ceilidh tonight!"
And at said ceilidh, the other brother (Mark, I think he said) played David Bowie's Space oddity. And Chris Hadfield says, "I love that song. I have to learn to play that song. Can you teach me the chords for that song?"
...
Anyhow, the concert. He started up with Which Way does the River Run? Which is mellow but beautiful. (I'd say overall the first set was a bit more mellow than the second, though anything with Tell Me a Ghost Story and 47 Angels on Her Front Lawn in it is NOT mellow). Things seemed to go up from there. he included two wholly new songs and a couple of which I was unfamiliar (2 Francophone and one from the first album, which I didn't have before the concert).
I held off on getting up until 47 Angels, because it was very much a sit down audience, but then I got up and boogied. I did so only twice before the break, I think, but I was up about every second song in the second set, if I wasn't up for more than one at a time. I was only joined by one person once. I suspect if I'd gone to the front I could have tipped the balance, but if my only choice was to dance where everybody might see me, I'm not doing it. At the back, I could pretend I was all invisible. (Haasiophis was dealing with meds that make her dizzy, so she sat.)
His only stumble was an unexpected and quite loud and clear request for Extraordinary Ordinary Life, which was not on his set list and he hadn't played in a while. I was actually rather impressed, as he worked through the opening chords, then his nephew figured out and remembered the keyboard, and he picked up the lyrics easily enough ... well, until the last verse, where he blanked on the first six words (It's not a short song, this is a very small percentage.)
I was THIS close to running from our spot near the back with the lyric sheet from the CD. But he just finally filled it in with "La la" and kept on.
I think as well as the obvious picks (I like Peter's Dream but not to the degree it's popular: It's #4 on the "top 10 maritime songs of all time" and high up on a number of other such lists) he hit all the songs I personally was most hoping he would hit. He ended the concert officially with "The Band's Still Playing", but the two encore songs (Does anyone ever not play an encore? OTOH, it was a small audience, but many stood) were the Open Window, which I like and had to dance to but wasn't pining for, and Lifeline, which was the main song I really wanted to hear and the one I was this close to hollering at the stage, and was trying to tell myself he'd done everything else I could ask for. Then he introduced it and I just about melted of the happy.
Amusing side note. Haasiophis and I each brought in one CD and left with three. But of a 9 CD repertoire, we both ended up with the same three CDs on hand. (In total, I'm only missing 2 now...)
Lifeline (Embedding disabled, but if you watch one, watch this.)
And this is why this is the one got me dancing.
And this seems sort of wryly appropriate to sneak in. And if you don't know why, you really didn't read the review above...