Toronto Plays Itself

Wednesday morning, I had another grocery run to Dufferin Mall. I think I will stick to the main roads because the warmer Toronto weather meant pools of water and slush on the side streets. It was a slightly pricier haul ($44.64) but I was getting items that will last such as rice and laundry detergent. Only a few days in and I was already much more active than in Ottawa.

That morning walk was good as I sat through another interminable meeting. Since I was rushed for time, lunch was a fresh bun ($0.70) from Progress Bakery and ingredients from my grocery hauls: basil pesto, fresh tomatoes, and green olives. For the evening meal, I finished off the leftover from Pam's lunch special.

The Tranzac was hosting The Holy Oak Family Singers, a collection of musicians who started out playing covers at the eponymous cafe/bar. They've carried on that tradition (along with the tongue-in-cheek moniker) at various venues since that business closed. Now they play a monthly gig at this Annex institution with themed shows: tonight were songs by Toronto artists to be sung by The Family Singers and guests.

I would have arrived sooner if I knew that the Southern Cross (a smaller room) was packed. It wasn't the last time I saw them at this venue. But with space already taken up by 18 musicians on the bill, there wouldn't be much of an audience if the bar staff was enforcing capacity limits. Some late-comers were left outside simply because they couldn't squeeze in: ironic as there were shows at The Holy Oak where people were turned away even though there was "plenty of room".

I thought they would cover more successful musicians. There were indeed a few including Thom Gill doing The Sweater (Meryn Cadell), a rousing Spirit of the Radio (Rush) by Alex Lukashevsky, an instrumental version of Easy To Tame (Kim Mitchell) with Josh Shabason on digital sax, and Ben Rositan covering Hockey (Jane Siberry). But it was more a case of people playing their friends' songs. These were all good but my highlights included a song called Everything All At Once (Alyson McNamara), Mingjia playing Change My Shape (Sam Tudor), and Bells Larsen ending the evening with Charlotte Cornfield's Silver Civic.

Several tip jars went around the room with contributions ranging between $5-20. I wonder if the musicians also added to the tip jar and then split the take later. Several people suggested that The Family Singers switch to a bigger room. But the downside was you had to pay to book them in advance. With the PWYC set-up in this room, your payout may be large or small, but you won't ever lose money.