Fair warning that this post is half celebrity meet and half show review. If you want to read about the show, jump down to after the first photo.
Those that have followed Alan's career have seen him branch out from his incredible musicianship to act and write. He'll happy talk about how he kind of fell into all of this from a chance meeting with Russell Crowe backstage at an awards show a few years ago. He was then cast with another gang of musician/actors in Robin Hood as Merry Men. The same crew guested in Newfoundland TV show Republic of Doyle. He has traveled the world gigging with some of the most notable names in Hollywood as well as monstrous musicians through his friendship with Crowe.
One of those that had piqued my interest was Scott Grimes. He was a merry man in Robin Hood, he played Archie on the later seasons ER, he has writing credits with Alan Doyle and gigs at those same huge get togethers. The videos are stunning. He was on my list of those to meet so imagine my excitement and surprise when he tweeted that he was coming up to Vancouver from LA for Alan's show. Alan was IN LA last week but for whatever reason, Grimes told his 53,000 followers he'd be in Vancouver.
My friends and I went downtown a little early for doors at 7 and picked up our tickets. While we waited, we saw Alan's right hand man on the tour, Cory Tetford (solo artist, rarely actor, the band Crush and others). He stopped to have a chat with us before heading in. Not long after that before the doors opened my friend spotted Scott Grimes crossing the road with a young lady right near us. They headed down the street but as if I wasn't excited enough for the concert, that just took the cake.
Once inside we visited the merch stand and just kind of hovered around the lobby not wanting to get settled into our seats yet. Sure enough Grimes came wandering in with the same person and they headed to the bar. We wanted to talk to him but didn't want to be obtrusive. We waited until he'd gotten his drink and he just wandered nearby and stood chatting with his friend. Now or never. We went over to him and my friend said 'Hi.' I had taken my Robin Hood and ER covers, just in case, but I didn't want to make him feel on the spot or obligated. When we saw him I pulled out my Robin Hood cover and stuffed it in my pocket figuring we'd see how it went. And it went well. He had huge hello's back for us almost like he knew us or was expecting us. My friend took the lead and introduced us and Scott asked, "Don't I know you guys?" I was thinking I wish but we just ended up joking about people stalking each other on Twitter and the amount of wine he'd drank already.
From there we launched into a great conversation about Alan Doyle and his awesomeness as well as them writing together. My friend is from Newfoundland and we talked about his time there with Republic of Doyle and the town of St. John's. Scott said he went to Alan's LA show and was going to just jump on the bus with them but he had some stuff he had to do so he flew up to Vancouver for this show. He mentioned the Chilliwack show the following night. We were planning to go to that and Scott said he wanted to but didn't want to rent a car. Before I could stop it my inner friendly person came out and offered to drive him since we were leaving from just outside Vancouver to the show. To his credit, he didn't run away. He actually feigned interest. Probably faking it but he is an actor (not that he seemed not genuine, but if I were him I'd be terrified if some weird fan offered me a ride). As more people came to talk to Scott, we started chatting with his guest (I'm not going to say girlfriend, but friend who was a very pretty girl) about the show and Alan. She was super friendly, a flight attendant and seemed really happy to talk with us while Scott chatted to other fans. She told us about their 'practice' downstairs just a little while before where she, as a non-musician, was a little surprised by the looseness of the song they were planning and how not-serious the practicing was. She had never seen Alan before and we assured her she was in for a spectacular night. We chatted about Newfoundland and her job as flight crew before Scott started getting antsy to go. He had been so cool before we were kind of hesitant to ask for autographs and photos because we didn't want to be too fan-ney. However, we asked if we could do an autograph before pulling any stuff out and he was more than okay with that, very happy to do it. I grabbed my Robin Hood cover as he asked, 'What have you got?' I smiled and said I had this and ER in my bag but I didn't want to keep him. He said to bring it on so I grabbed that too. He personalized the Robin Hood and signed the ER. He signed Robin Hood for my friend too and we asked about photos, totally understanding if he didn't want to do that. But no, he was all in and we all took a second to smile with him as he graciously took pictures. In my haste to try and get the marker lidded with my shaky hands, I dropped the lid while we were setting up for the photo. As I bent to get it I blabbed that I didn't want to stab him with the blue sharpie on his white shirt while we tried to get a photo (meanwhile I stabbed myself with it leaving a huge blue smudge on my hand). He even said that he would be okay with that. The guy is just so casual. We snapped photos and let him go.
And all that awesomeness before the show even started.
From the second row on Doyle's right hand side we were right in front of where Cory Tetford would be standing. The Vogue is a great venue for shows, amazing acoustics and can be seated or not. When it's seated they sure bolt the chairs close together, I spent most of the night elbowing the lady next to me when we stood up.
The show started with Alan coming out alone, without even a guitar and singing the unrecorded Dream of Home, a beautiful ballad. Only accompanied by a glass of wine which he saluted us with for the line 'I lift a cup with all my friends' you could see in his eyes and body language how genuinely welcome he wanted us all to feel.
He then brought out the band he lovingly calls 'The Beautiful Gypsies' and did a couple of songs from his solo album as well as a couple of Great Big Sea numbers. The feeling in the venue was the crowd was totally into it and Alan and the band were fired up. It didn't take long to have the house on their feet and even though there was some up and down in the first set, they mostly stayed that way. It didn't take long for Cory to spot us in the crowd and say hi to us from the stage which was very awesome.
Alan was full of stories about Newfoundland, a lot of them self-depreciating where he was the punchline. Being such a great storyteller is part of his charm and we were spared no expense on this night. From jokes ("I am the fountain of affection, I'm the instrument of joy" .... pause.... "Think about that for a minute") to stories, he had a lot to say. In the first set alone there were stories about dancing, especially the Newfoundland high school moves, about sneaking out into town and potentially getting into trouble but being accepted (The Night Loves Us), about expensive music videos (for My Kingdom), asking a girl to dance and getting turned down (Dance, Dance) and a shotgun wedding.
After the uptempo Lukey, the crowd sat and Alan launched into a story about some fisherman who set sail and soon realized that they wouldn't be making it home. They carved into a gaff (stick basically) their names and the words "Laying down to perish". This inspired Alan's song of the same title and he sang it to an almost silent house. There is always so much multi-instrumental-ism happening at shows like this. Alan plays the guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, Cory does the same. Kendel Carson plays violin and guitar. The one that I always enjoy watching is drummer Kris MacFarlane (from GBS). He is such a creative drummer and also sings, plays auxiliary, runs the computer pads on a couple of songs that they use them, and my favorite, hits the drums with things like shakers and tambourine sticks when necessary. It's a riot to watch. I have to say that one of my favorite parts of Laying Down to Perish on the album is the field drum that happens during one of the choruses. With Kris playing accordion during that song, this unfortunately got omitted in the live show. Just a little thing that made me kind of sad. But don't get me wrong, it was still amazing.
The set ended with the GBS tune Hit the Ground and Run and the crowd was so charged that it was almost a shame to take intermission. After inserting the preacher-like call and response of "Can I get an amen? Can I get a hallelujah? Can I get a sweet Jesus in the garden?" the crowd had strict instructions to get a beer or other beverage and they would be back.
Intermission: Bathroom line up. The Vogue needs more bathrooms.
Alan re-appeared after intermission with only a guitar. He came to the mic and started to talk, asking the crowd if it was okay if he breaks from the setlist and brings a friend out. From our angle we'd already spotted Scott offstage with the manager but we had no idea the magnitude of what we were about to see.
He called out his good friend Scott Grimes after talking about how helpful Scott was during Robin Hood when Alan had no clue what he was doing. He came bouncing out on stage in the same clothes we'd just seen him in. They were both obviously pleased as punch for this opportunity and Alan started to talk about the song but then deferred to Scott. He explained that this was written by the two of them after the Boston Marathon bombing and Grimes is from Boston. The song is called Home. Scott sang the first verse, then Alan, and then some of the most beautiful harmonies, pitch perfect. It was show stopping, amazing and beautiful. The two of them have so much chemistry on stage, obviously born from a strong friendship and songwriting partnership. Scott belted it out where it was necessary and other times walked over to Alan and put a hand around his shoulder cozying up to his friend. To top it off, as Scott wandered the stage he came our way, noticed us and pointed directly at us, I'm guessing because he recognized us from before the show (I'm not exactly easy to miss). As for the actual performance, I'm sure that those that didn't know about Scott's talents were totally floored. Even those of us who knew were riveted. As the song ended I couldn't have been the only one wondering why the hell these two haven't done an album and/or toured together. Their voices mesh so well and they obviously work well together. Before Scott left the stage he gave Alan a huge hug and while holding onto him and he couldn't see, roused the crowd into more applause. It was an incredible moment and again, I couldn't have been the only one that was a little sad when Grimes left the stage after the one song. We were left wanting more.
After that, Alan sang Wave Over Wave with audience participation and then started Shine On from his new album by himself. By the second verse, Cory and Kendel joined him and each took half the verse solo. They then crowded one mic and sang together. Gradually the band filtered out and ratcheted up the intensity finishing the song in all it's rocking glory. The crowd was on it's feet and at the mercy of the performers. I have to say by this time I knew I was witnessing something special. I have seen this man so many times, always perfect, mostly incredible energy. Tonight, though, was different. You could feel it. The crowd, the band, the guests (Grimes wasn't the only friend of Alan in the crowd. There was another actor/musician present as well). It just *felt* different.
The band rocked through the heart of the second set with Alan dedicating Stay to Scott Grimes who co-wrote the chart. One kind of hilarious technical glitch was between Shine On and So Let's Go where Kris has to get a patch going and change a cymbal on his drum set. Alan comes back to the mic and preps the crowd, "Are you ready? SO LETS GO!" and then Kris is struggling to get himself organized. An awkward 20 second break ensues and someone from the crowd yells "Are YOU ready?" The crowd laughs and soon we are back in the groove. The only cover in the 26 songs was John Mellencamp's Paper In Fire which has really taken a life of it's own since I first saw Alan do it a few years ago. Cory shredded the Colin James parts on Testify and the house was rocking all the way through the GBS classic Ordinary Day.
As soon as Alan left the stage there was unified stomping and clapping to bring them back. There was never any doubt and he didn't make the crowd wait long, which was good. I turned to my friend and expressed relief that we weren't sitting under the balcony with 800 people stomping in a building that old.. you start to hope it's up to code.
Alan took the stage again with his keyboard/accordion player and the crowd quieted as he almost seemed overwhelmed when he said, "When you sing songs for a living, you hope for nights like this." He told a story of his brother getting a job in Chilliwack/Harrison area when Alan was around 20. He came out to live out of his brothers van with him for a few weeks and spent some time in Vancouver during that period. As a young man from a small town in Newfoundland he was impressed with Vancouver and before he sang I Am A Sailor he couldn't finish his sentence as he said 'If you had told me then that my name would be on the sign...' He stepped back to his towel and drink while the keyboardist played the intro and he came back to sing a passionate and heartfelt rendition of this beautiful song, emphasizing the chorus to the crowd every time:
'"Cause I am a sailor, and you are a star,
And the midnight sky is ours;
You hold the lantern, and I'll chase the light,
Take me anywhere you wanna go tonight"
And the midnight sky is ours;
You hold the lantern, and I'll chase the light,
Take me anywhere you wanna go tonight"
The band returned to perform the barn-burner, designed for shows, 1-2-3-4 (co-written with Ed Robertson of Barenaked Ladies) which starts with the call "Whiskey, whiskey, the singer's gettin' sore" but prompts the crowd to carry the band, which they gladly did on this night. Alan did long band introductions during this song before rapping his way to the end, but not before breaking into a bit of The Tide Is High.
Doyle thanked the crowd once again before singing Take Us Home and giving every motion indicating that this place is part of home. The crowd feet his love particularly in the last verse as he sings:
"This is my song, It’s the only one I know
This is my heart, Take it with you when you go
I wanna thank you for the show
No one wants to dance alone
I’ll see you down the road"
This is my heart, Take it with you when you go
I wanna thank you for the show
No one wants to dance alone
I’ll see you down the road"
The band left Alan alone on stage before he sings one last acapella number alone in a spotlight, Where I Belong for this appreciative crowd. As the last notes sounded with open arms he bowed and thanked the crowed and I think everyone there knew they had just witnessed about as perfect a show as you can get. Passion from the crowd, passion from the stage, a house full of love and respect for an incredible musician and those that work with him. What an amazing night.
And the next day, I end up with a new Twitter follower, Scott Grimes himself.
Highlights: Perfection.
Lowlights: Big bathroom lines. No DSLR's allowed. I mean really, those are meager complaints. I don't have anything legitimate to complain about here.
Setlist (acquired from the tour manager after the show):
- Dream of Home
- Can't Dance Without You
- When I'm Up
- My Day
- WHere the Nightengales Sing
- Sea of No Cares
- My Kingdom
- The Night Loves Us
- Lukey
- Laying Down to Perish
- Dance Dance
- Hit The Ground and Run
Intermission - Going Home (Not on setlist, featuring Scott Grimes)
- Wave Over Wave
- Shine On
- So Let's Go
- I've Seen A Little
- Stay
- Old Black Rum
- Paper In Fire
- Run Runaway
- Testify
- Ordinary Day
Encore - I Am A Sailor
- 1-2-3-4
- Take Us Home
- Where I Belong
Created with flickr slideshow.
0 comments:
Post a Comment