From: Bodies and Minds
I took Irene up to Wakefield, Quebec for our 1 year anniversary. We had a great time. The town is beautiful (especially in the snow) and the music is sweet and harmonious.
I am blown away by amazing music once again. We saw the Great Lake Swimmers at the Black Sheep Inn. What a great band - even the opening act was amazing - and what an amazing venue.
I have been listening to GLS for a while after finding their link on 'The Acorn's myspace site it didn't take me long to find some of their music. But I was worried that they wouldn't be able to pull it off. Dekker's vocals are so pure at times that I felt that the cd had been a little to polished. How wrong I was. The guy has an amazing voice. When he was playing with just the acoustic guitar on songs like 'To Leave It Behind' I could not have been more impressed.
The other thing I loved about this guy was his slight awkwardness on stage during the between song banter. He wasn't there to pump the crowd or anything, he was just so real. And, although he started the band in Toronto, he is originally from Wainfleet (btwn Dunnville and Port Colbourne as he said). It got me thinking, could he be related to Crystal Dekker? I mean she is from around there somewhere..... anyone know? Anyway I never got a chance to ask him because it was 12:00 by the time we were leaving after the 3rd encore.
The opening band put on a great show too. This girl, Basia Bulat with her really skilled band really set it up for GLS. Completely loved it. You could tell she was blown away at the size of the crowd in a small town in the middle of nowhere none the less. She seemed really shy but all that went away once the songs started. Loved it. There is simply too much undiscovered good music in this world.
And that is what this venue is all about. This was my first time there and after hearing so much about it (everything from 'its seedy' to 'its amazing') I am really impressed. This is clearly a real music venue. People don't come there to get high, mosh, scream or get trashed. They come for the music (and the great selection of local beers doesn't hurt either). I have never seen such an enthralled audience. During the songs everyone just watched and listened, soaking it in as much as possible. People are coming from all over for these indie shows in the middle of a quaint town on a lake. Overall - this place beats any venue in downtown toronto. Its so intimate. I mean, we ended the evening sitting on the floor against the side wall getting lulled to sleep by some soaring vocals and soft acoustic guitar.What, I ask you, can be better than that?
5 comments:
hey Reuben...
I think a couple years ago.. or maybe just a year and a half (..whatever..) I was at Holy Joe's (same building as Reverb) in TO with Scott A and Mieke Z, and we were there to see some other band (that we never actually ended up seeing/hearing because we were on the wrong floor or something... ya but that's another story altogether) ... and the Great Lake Swimmers were playing when we first got in. And I remember thinking, "these guys are pretty good, and there's a pretty good crowd here... I wonder if they're going to get big.." [well, maybe I didn't think that last bit, but it's nice to think that we saw them when they were first touring and stuff]. They no doubt are a significant contribution to Canada's music scene.
And I mean, they've been compared to Nick Drake and Iron & Wine, both stellar artists.
oh and ps, happy anniversary.
hey thanks sarah!
yeah i can't say enough about that show. thats really cool that you saw em before.
you should really come up to the black sheep inn. you would love it. its a real music lover-hipster hangout. real intimate way to see music.
a rather belated happy anniversary to you!
... i finally got around to reading this! ive been listening to gls and barely got past "song for the angels" cause its just too dang good!
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