Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Spring Concerts #4: Great Lake Swimmers w/ Timber Timbre

This last of the spring concerts (of which I can remember) was just two weeks ago. We went with a couple friends to see the Great Lake Swimmers perform at the First Baptist Church downtown. We arrived quite early and ended up being the first in line so we spent the time chatting on the steps of the church as the line grew behind us. The show was sold out and people kept asking us for tickets. We also chatted with a guy waiting in line with us and it turned out that he had been at many of the same concerts I had been at in the last year (including Radiohead in Montreal).
The opening band was called Timber Timbre and were more experimental than I had expected. They do have a song on rotation on Radio3 but they were definitely more intense than I had expected after listening to their songs online. The first song consisted of looping all kinds of sounds which ended up sounding like a marsh of crickets and other wildlife. Very interesting and it sounded quite cool.
When Tony Dekker came out it was just like the last time we saw him. He is so great in his timid/shy delivery. You do not expect his voice to be so powerful and dynamic. And as expected the church atmosphere just added to that.
We saw them about two years ago on our first year anniversary on a snowy March evening in Wakefield. This show was just as good. Not quite as intimate but great sound and a bigger band more than made up for it.
One of those new additions is Julie Fader who played a fantastic flute piece and provided amazing backup vocals. When we saw them last time Basia Bulat did some of those backup parts as she was opening for them.
We had a chance to chat it up with Tony Dekker after the show and ask him about Dunnville/Wainfleet since that is where he is from. He is such a nice and down to earth guy and quickly obliged our request to sign his set list that we had stolen from on stage after the show.
Definitely a highlight from all the concerts I have been to. But really there are so many fantastic artists out there. How can you chose between them. You just have to see them all. I want to go see Justin Rutledge again this Saturday but alas I may be getting 'redirected' to family time. Too bad, I hope I can at least catch him today since he should be playing somewhere downtown on Canada Day.

2 comments:

Irene said...

thanks for taking me. it was a great time.

Anonymous said...

wow amazing! I love Tony