Reuben & the Dark - Live at The Media Club

Reuben & the Dark put on an amazing performance two nights ago at my favourite venue (The Media Club). They are a five piece band from Calgary and I would not be surprised if major fame is in their future. Their songs are beautiful and powerful, Reuben's voice is fantastic and the harmonies are phenomenal and the drums are epic, and the electric guitar and synths are magical. They played nearly every song on their album, and my friend who didn't really know them probably said "Okay this is my favourite song" at least three times throughout the show. The noisy crowd quieted right down after a few songs and Reuben sang "A Memory's Lament" without a microphone at the edge of the stage which was probably my favourite moment of the night because we were in such a small intimate venue and it was just so beautiful. "Rolling Stone" was fantastic and  "Bow and Arrow" and "Marionette" were probably my two favourite songs, but it is very hard to choose. They got an encore (which doesn't always happen at Media Club) and Reuben played a song that he made up on stage while in Saskatoon when they got encored and didn't have any songs left to play. I would highly recommend listening to their album "Funeral Sky" and seeing this fantastic band if you get the chance. 

 

Rolling Stone

 

Memroy's Lament

Bow & Arrow

Michael Bernard Fitzgerald - Live at The Vogue Theater

 

Michael Bernard Fitzgerald sure knows how to put on a show. The Calgary musician played the vogue theater last night and it was unlike anything I've ever seen before. The night started with four openers, all local artists from Vancouver performing songs they'd written in a "songwriter's circle" style explaining the backstories of each song, which I really enjoyed. The last opener were three members of the band Hey Ocean, (who are all currently recording solo albums) and they were all incredibly talented musicians. Michael Bernard Started off the show with a couple of love songs before he was joined by the rest of his band. A few songs later, a Vancouver children's choir and a small orchestra joined the stage. Just when I thought he couldn't possibly fit any more people on the small theater stage, 25 dancers joined the show for last couple of songs. It was absolutely insane. So much going on, but it really brought his music to a whole other level and I enjoyed every minute of it. "Man Overboard" and "Movie Life" were fantastic, but "Brand New Spaces" in the encore was probably my favourite moment with the whole crowd stomp-clapping and with a two minute sax solo.

Current Obsession: Foxygen - In the Darkness

The Gloaming - Live at The Chan Center of Performing Arts

The Gloaming is an Irish group made up of two fiddles, a piano, a guitar and a singer but it is so much more than that. Martin Hayes is a renowned and extremely talented fiddle player in Ireland and Iarla O'Lionaird is a famous Irish singer who sings in Gaelic. Caoimhin O'Raghallaigh plays the hardanger fiddle which has six strings underneath the main strings that resonate when the main four strings are played making it sounds almost like two instruments. Dennis Cahill is a talented acoustic guitar player from Chicago and Thomas Bartlett is a piano player/composer from New York who has played with bands like The National. So the gloaming is pretty much a super group of musicians adding their own style to traditional Irish music.

They played The Chan Center on campus, which is large and ornate but also strangely intimate. It was a sold out show and more of an older crowd. They started the show with only the hardanger fiddle playing a slow beautiful melody, then the piano joined in and Iarla O'Lionaird stepped up to the mic to sing. He sang a line in Gaelic over the beautiful piano and fiddle and I felt instant shivers through my whole body and my eyes welled up with tears. They were playing a song that I didn't even recognize, or understand a single word to and yet it was so beautiful I felt like my heart was about to burst in my chest. Moments when live music makes you feel like that are what I live for.

Later, O'Lionaird explained that many of their songs are actually Irish poems and he explained what the poems were about before playing each song. The topics were things like dreams, birds, freedom, home, and being in love with a place.

Caoimhin O'Raghallaigh spoke of how beautiful it was flying into Vancouver at sunset and as he was looking at the airplane wing it made him think of an Antoine de Saint-Exupery quote used to describe an airplane wing: "Perfection is not achieved when nothing more can be added, but when nothing more can be taken away". He then used this quote to transition into the next song, "Sailor's Bonnet" which is perfect in it's simplicity as well. Martin Hayes's extraordinary skill with the fiddle was displayed on this song. It started off with choppy short burst of fiddle and piano and gradually gets faster and faster and then the hardanger fiddle joins in and it turns into a boot stomping irish jig that had the entire Chan Center tapping their feet along. It was amazing and I noticed I was grinning ear to ear and felt my heart would burst again, this time from pure joy.

Sailor's Bonnet  

( At 9:25 the crowd actually cheered, this was the best moment)

Current Obsession: Bear's Den

 

Just hold out against the night
And guard your hope with your life

Don't cry
Hold your head up high

Bet you can't make it through both these videos without crying - I couldn't anyway. 
Lovely songs though.