Songbird

I was at The Burdock on Thursday for a rare appearance by Ivy Mairi. First up was her friend Devarrow. She later confided that she organized the show because the latter wanted to play in Toronto during his tour. In both his music and banter, there was an earnestness to Devarrow's performance, accompanied by guitar, box drum, and a falsetto hitch in his voice. Unfortunately, the loud bar chatter rendered his softer songs like The Great Escape and Modern Ark almost unintelligible. He did better with bluesy, upbeat numbers like Fix and Down The Road.

Mairi came on stage and in a mock-serious manner told the crowd to keep it down: referring to her growing intolerance of bar noises in her "old age", even said her new album was called No Talker (it's actually Non Believer). The crowd did pipe down. Into that silence, her sweet voice gave us wonderful folk songs like Thrush, There Is A Thing, and Sad Man. For the occasion, she brought a few friends as a backing band: Kieran Adams (Diana), Caitlin Woefle-Obrien (Blunt Chunks), and long-time collaborator Matthew Bailey. She has been dabbling in pop music too so we were treated to sweet groovy jams like Julia and All Around Me. I've heard her doing backup vocals plenty of time (until I heard her last year in Kith and Kin) but rarely as a head-liner. This talented singer-songwriter need to step into the spotlight more often. Once a year is much too long between shows.