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The early show at The Burdock on Wednesday was packed. Many friends of singer Kaili Kinnon were there to support her as she returns to the stage. Kinnon's life has been more or less on hold over the last year due to a concussion. Late into her set, she admitted that as recently as a month ago, she wasn't sure if she would be able to perform.

Though she usually sits behind her piano, tonight she sang standing front and centre. A full band played through a set of old material (Deepest Blue) to mostly new songs (Come Be Near, You Could Be Mine) from her 1218 project: 12 total songs released monthly through 2018. This project was also derailed because of her injury and didn't wrap up until now.

I couldn't quite engage with her music. It was a mix of Jazz and Pop, and not the best bits. So we have the ambiguous idiom of Jazz without the catchy simplicity of pop melodies combined with middle-of-the-road pop lyrics. A cover of Joni Mitchell's Case Of You highlighted what transcendent lyrics could be. Kinnon has a big vocal range, but her tendency toward Shakira-esque vibrato in the lower register grated after a while. She is undoubted talented and well-loved by the crowd tonight and I applaud her commitment to raising money for brain injuries.