When I was a kid we used to drive up to the cottage late at Friday nights, and after we had brought everything up from the boat and scarfed down a few hot dogs, my dad would put on the French radio station and fall asleep on the couch while we played cards on the carpet. This was a looooong time ago, but I recently rediscovered a love of French-language music, and have been slowly building my French-concert-going repertoire. I started with a Karkwa marathon at hillside last summer, and last night added Marie-Pierre Arthur to the growing list.
I first heard Arthur on CBC radio a few years ago with her single 'Pourquoi' off of her self-titled debut. I lived in Halifax at the time and despite searching several record stores was unable to locate a copy of the album. After a while I kind of forgot about her until a friend mentioned that she was coming to town. I really only knew that one song, but I had loved it so much that I jumped at the chance to see her live. Good. Call.
Not only does Marie-Pierre have an amazing voice- throaty and deep but crisp, she could make singing the alphabet beautiful- but her band members were equally talented- and entertaining! Each of them were super into their playing, but not so much that they weren't able to interact with the others and with the audience. Quite the opposite in fact. Playful banter and a post intermission (yes there was an intermission, weird but it worked, and made for an excellently long concert!) sing-off between the drummer, guitarist, keyboardist and guitar/banjo player during a rousing cover of "I didn't mean to hurt you."
Now I don't usually write about concert production unless its really really bad- I mean if the band has to stop part way through their set to help the sound-guy re-mix (Cuff the Duke at Maverick's.... yeesh!) it kind of needs to be at least touched on- but the production side of this concert completely blew me away. We walked in to the very small university-type auditorium space- not usually the ideal venue for a rock show- but the thin layer of smoke hovering in the air and the old-school speaker-cabinet-style lighting made it work. The sound quality was crazy good- clear vocals, perfect balance, enough bass to feel but not too much, crisp keys, guitar and drums, and plucky banjo- everything sounded like the way it was most ideally meant to sound. And the lighting... perfect. Rock'n'Roll but with all these little touches that just brought it all to life.... fantastic!
Despite the lecture-hall setting, the crowd was clearly in a head-bopping mood and lost no time in getting into the music. By the time the band broke out the banjo for a few folkified re-imaginings of some of their older stuff people were all but dancing in their seats (ok, ok, there were a number of us actually dancing in our seats...). Throw in a couple of audience sing-a-longs and she had us in the palm of her hand.
The second half started off with an incredibly sad ballad to a friend departed then segued into upbeat and boppy tunes like 'Emmene-moi' and 'Pourquoi' before finishing off with a powerhouse of four quick ones culminating in a huge standing ovation. Capping it all off, a grinning Marie-Pierre shouted 'meet us out in the parking lot!" before running off stage... a slightly confused audience looked at one another before quickly deciding she was serious and filing out into the parking lot. We were then treated to several acoustic sing-a-longs in the surprisingly beautiful acoustics of the concrete and pavement on an unseasonably warm March evening.
Before the show, while eating at a Thai restaurant down the street, I had a sneaking suspicion that the small brunette and overly bearded dudes at the next table might possible be the band we were about to see... It seems odd now to have been unsure of what they looked like mere hours before having them emblazoned on my brain at one of the most memorable concerts I've ever been to...
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