Live With Lido (and Lido)

Tuesday afternoon, Lido Pimienta was live-streaming on Youtube as LidoTV. I thought that it would be a pre-recorded show but was pleasantly surprised that it was live. Her team had built a "living room" with bright, kitschy décor including several of her artwork on the walls. Over the next hour, Pimienta enthralled her audience with songs from her latest release Miss Colombia.

With only her on stage, she found a way to make both the music and the visuals engaging. There were multiple cameras but they weren't intrusive. One even offered a kaleidoscopic effect now and then. On the audio side, it wasn't all backing tracks. Piementa used live looping to layer multiple vocals during her performance. This made songs including her 2 singles from this album: Nada and Eso Que Tu Haces as well as numbers like Pelo Cucu and Resisto Y Va interesting and different from the album.

There were even several costume changes. During these breaks, they aired videos of a "Lido Shopping Network" where she attempted to (wink) sell merchandise. Her sales patter became increasingly surreal and absurd as Pimienta implored her fans to buy vinyls (you won't play them, so hang them as paintings), CDs (having 3 kids is expensive, she's in debt to her record label), and calendars or small prints of her artwork (give them to your parents, they won't use it, so you can take them back later, it's like a double gift). Her natural humour translated perfectly to the screen.

The audience loved both the over-the-top antics and the singing. They were watching from around the world, though most were from Spanish-speaking countries. The dearth of local fans (i.e., Canadians) despite her credentials: a previous record won the Polaris prize, the new one was short-listed for the Polaris as well as a recent Grammy nomination, was puzzling. It reminded me of numerous Toronto musicians who only found success after leaving Canada such as Stacey, Allie X (L.A.), and Michelle Guverich (Berlin).

Vs The World

It's funny how you can get tired from doing nothing all day. So I woke up from a Friday nap too late to catch Nyssa's live show at Lee's Palace. Luckily, this live stream was available to watch the next day. I settled in on Saturday to give it a look-see.

This would have been an album release so the set was comprised of songs from her latest work. But in addition to numbers like Greenback Dollar, Bye Bye Jubilee and Misty Morning, there were also unreleased music (Innisfree Blues, Appetite 4 Destruction). Nyssa continued to mine storytelling songs (Go Away Evil, Full Of Love) but the focus has narrowed to snapshots instead of grander narratives. This was also the first time I have seen her play an instrument during a 4-song acoustic section with her childhood friend Zack Burgess. Her penultimate song, Ann-Margret's It's a Nice World To Visit (But Not To Live In), may be the most obscure cover I've witnessed but appropriate for 2020.

This show didn't engage me as much as previous Nyssa shows. As a relatively unknown musician, she often plays to a new crowd. Part of the magic is to watch her magnetic stage presence convert a disinterested audience. Without people there, it wasn't as fun to experience. Furthermore, this was a pre-recorded show with voice-overs, post-production video editing, and so on. This makes for a slicker presentation but at least for me, takes away from the live show aspect. I'm not in the habit of watching an hour-long music video.

I'm also feeling the equivalent of Zoom fatigue. I've been reading my old reviews of shows and even just a few years on, many only elicit a few seconds of remembrance (maybe due to my aphantasia?) There are even some where I don't remember being there at all. So frankly, I doubt these virtual shows during the pandemic will create lasting memories for me. In fact, an even more nagging question: should I even bother with actual live events once things go back to normal?

Songs For A Winter's Night

It's not quite winter yet in Toronto on Thursday though there was apparently a glorious sunset. Here in Ottawa, there was snow on the ground. I normally miss The O'Pears' annual Christmas show (except for 2017 and 2018), but they were live-streaming this year.

Their stage, in a living room or basement, looked too big to be inside a typical semi-detached house in Toronto. They must be ensconced somewhere out in the country. It looked cozy and welcoming, even the plastic partitions between the singers were decorated with garlands. At first, I was skeptical watching this over Zoom; a show early on with Sara Slean was only so-so. With a small "crew" handling multiple cameras and a professionally mic-ed set-up, it was much better tonight. Video quality could probably be HD on a different platform but it was reasonably crisp and audio quality was superb. The big advantage was that we could watch other viewers and the band could see our faces. Since many included friends and family of Lydia Persaud, Jill Harris, and Meg Contini, the ladies were quite emotional at various points in the evening.

An O'Pears show is all about those glorious harmonies and they delivered in spades. From beautiful originals like Morning Song, Lady Winter to covers (Joni Mitchell's River, Have Your A Merry Little Christmas), they wrapped the audience in layers of sonic warmth. Having a full band was also a treat especially tonight. Steve Lavery (drums), Joshua Van Tassel (piano), Ben Whiteley (bass), and Christine Bougie (slide/electric guitar) all played on The O'Pears sophomore album. But this was the first time they were together as a "real" band. Some proceeds from tonight was benefiting grass-root organization Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction. The O'Pears also took the time to highlight emergencies that has come to the forefront this year including the BLM marches, homeless encampments, and Indigenous reconciliation.

Revolution 3

Thursday night was the second installment of a Molly Tuttle show from The Basement in Nashville with Annie Clements and Megan Jane. Tonight's theme: songs about social change and revolution. It started with Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell) and ended with (What's So Funny Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding (Nick Lowe). In between were numerous tunes challenging the status quo.

There were only few songs about actual revolution, if we are talking about collective action, like Talking 'Bout A Revolution (Tracy Chapman) and We Shall Not Be Moved (Labour Version)(Woody Guthrie). There were plenty of numbers highlighting injustices in the world: Working Girl Blues (Hazel Dickens), Ohio (Neil Young), What's Going On (Marvin Gaye), and War (Bob Marley). Tuttle also covered songs about an individual's challenge to societal attitudes like Rebel Girl (Bikini Kill), Born This Way (Lady Gaga), Not Ready To Make Nice (The Chicks) and The Man (Taylor Swift).

As in her previous show, she brought a virtuosic playing and often a blue-grass feel to the song. Even on her electric guitar, I noticed that her solos tended toward crisp, clean notes instead of the stylings more common to rock (string bends, pedal effects, whammy bar). Her cover of Anais Mitchell's Why We Build The Wall was excellent. Without the swell of voices repeating its verses, it didn't have the thrumming gravitas that electrified me when I first heard it. But on the other hand, Tuttle's solos for that song was outstanding.

On the technical side though, the show was a mess. The sound was excellent but the video was out-of-sync for the whole evening. In addition, many people were unable to log in to watch. So the live chat filled with more complaints than praise. It was distracting like chatty barflies at a venue. The mismatched visuals also detracted from the experience as part of the thrill of seeing Molly Tuttle is to watch her work the frets. Because of these problems, the platform Mandolin offered a 24-hour replay option for ticket holders unlike the first broadcast.