Biggy Jiggy Fitty Committee

Friday night, I was at The Danforth Hall for the 1st of 3 sold-out hometown shows for the all-female rock band The Beaches. With a capacity of around 1500 (4500 total), their popularity is not quite arena-level yet but getting there. Opener Valley played to a good-sized crowd. Though their fresh-faced enthusiasm got ironic smirks from some older concert-goers, the younger people at this all-ages event showed them some love. Their music was pop-rock but having modern influences with some electronica beats and crackles. I thought their drummer, Karah James, did great work keeping their songs varied and interesting. With enough people knowing the words to Swim and other songs,  signed to the same label as The Beaches (Universal Music), and having fans wearing custom-made jean jacket inspired by the cover art of their EP, it looks like Valley is also on their way up.

After their pre-requisite Avril Lavigne intro, The Beaches came on stage to loud roars. They launched into Snake Tongue, a recent hit about cat-calling misogyny and dick pics. These types of feminist anthems distinguished them from the cock rock bands of the past. But their mainstream popularity also rests on using those same musical foundation: propulsive drumming, catchy and repetitive refrain, wordless chorus, and chunky rock riffs or chords. Songs like Fascination and Money inspired plenty of sing-along and dancing. This updated take on arena rock continued on their latest EP, sometimes creating another incisive and fun hit (Want What You Got's nod to status envy) and sometimes a merely serviceable number (The Professional).

All members were quite comfortable strutting and prowling a large stage but Leandra Earl has fully embraced the rock star/David Lee Roth persona. Whether on guitar, synth, or the occasional lead song, she was all hair-twirls, leg-kicks, and jumps. The crowd was also approaching near stadium-level participation with even a girl or two being hoisted up on their friend's shoulders for the encore T-Shirt. No crowd-surfing yet, but in a few years this band will likely scale up to even bigger venues: a long way from playing rinky-dink bars with their parents as roadies.

The Battlefield Is Love

On Thursday, I was at The Great Hall for a sold-out charity concert. Organized by the Indigenous Music Summit, the aim was to raise money for a legal defense fund to benefit the Wet’suwet’en strike action against the oil pipeline. Loud cheers greeted the announcement that over $12,900 was raised even before tallying up the raffle and t-shirt sales. Over the stage a banner declared "Stronghold", protest posters hung throughout the space, and Indigenous flags were draped over the balconies.

After a smudging ceremony, several matriarchs blessed the proceedings with a Wet'suwet'en elder talking about what's been going on all last year on their land before recent events exploded nationwide. The Charging Horse Singers led several chant songs while jingle dancers moved in front of the stage.

Sarain Fox was the emcee for the night. She hyped up the musical guests, led the crowd in a round dance, encouraged people to buy raffle tickets, and outlined several follow-on activist actions that everyone should do. A young spoken word artist Zoe Pricelys Roy stunned the crowd with intense poetry. Serena Ryder, along with her best friend Hill Kourkoutis, opened with the a capella Nobody But You, got the crowd dancing with What I Wouldn't Do, and covered Emily King's beautiful Teach You.

Brenda McIntyre chanted The Healing Song before Witch Prophet (and DJ Sun Sun) turned up the electronic beats for surprisingly jazzy numbers Time Traveler, Moussa, and Manifest. Amanda Rheaume (with guests Robin Hatch, Skye Wallace) brought a bit of roots-rock with The Skin I'm In, Red Dress (dedicated to the missing and murdered Indigenous women), and Strongest Heart.

Veronica Johnny led the crowd with a spine-tingling group sing of The Strong Woman Song. Digging Roots brought the message home in rocking fashion with AK 47 (a gun that shoots love) and Spring To Come. Chantal Kreviazuk silenced the crowd with an a capella rendition of Feels Like Home before sitting down on the piano for Vicious. Rheaume joined her on Waiting For The Sun before Digging Roots came back to support Kreviazuk with the closer Feeling Blue.

Throughout the evening, several elders emphasized that we must keep our hearts open and full of kindness even if some may feel agitated to escalate the situation. One pointed out to laughter that change was the solution, not violence: to be "shift disturbers". Fox explained that the translation of the Indigenous phrase "We are the stronghold" was actually "The heart is a stronghold". But given past history regarding First Nations people and the ugly sentiment of many Canadians on display in real life and newspapers' comments, I can't help but think pessimistically of Audrey Lord's quote: "[T]he master's tools will never dismantle the master's house".

Four Chords And The Truth

On Wednesday, I headed over to The Burdock for the 1st night of their acoustic festival. There was some snow on the ground but the snowstorm was delayed. It was a full show with 8 singers on the bill but I only stayed for four. For whatever reason, all of them had a song that mused on both the fear and thrill of having only a finite time to live in this world.

Jason Anderson started with a long, discursive ode called El Paso. This song, along with a new number about a Midwest road trip through Climax, Michigan, were my favourite with their folk-pop and storytelling lyricism. I wanted him to move away from a reliance on end-rhymes. And I'm not as enamoured of his occasional foray into "white man screaming" mode.

This was my first encounter with Jessica Stuart's new koto that she brought back from Japan. It was a beauty. She did a few songs from her Jessica Stuart Few days. I was taken with the new Borrowed Time which found a great balance between some evocative koto playing and her richer, more resonant middle register. Stuart ended with a mash-up cover of Here Comes The Rain/Sunglasses at Night.

I haven't heard Sarah Cripps play in almost 2 years. She also admitted that she hasn't played live for quite some time. So we got some extra-sad rendition (courtesy of the "February blues") of songs from her last album: Charcoal Heart, Bones, and Leave Behind. There was still some propulsiveness to her playing but I miss that gothic meets yee-haw country vibe. Cripps also closed with a cover: Gillian Welch's "middle-finger-to-state-of-music-industry" Everything Is Free. I hope that's not why she hasn't been active lately.

Sabine Ndalamba was a revelation. Songs like Home, Just Because, and Already combined deft finger or flat picking, interesting chords and transitions, and a beautiful vocal range. An oldie The Rain Has Come showed how much she has progressed as a singer/songwriter. This young artist deserves to be more widely known.

As I left the venue, the storm had arrived with blinding sleet of snow coming down on empty streets. I might not have left my place if it came early. But I was glad I saw this fine show tonight.

Walking Wounded

On Tuesday, I went to Factory Theatre to see Marjarie Chan's Lady Sunrise, a re-imagining of Cao Yu's play Sunrise from 1936. Relocated to Vancouver circa 2008, it revolved around the lives of Asian women from all class strata. There was the main character, ex-model and current party girl Penny (Lindsay Wu) who worried that her looks were fading and her adopted "auntie", Tawny (Crazy) Ku (Ma-Anne Dionisio), a rich widower with a penchant for lost causes and get-rich schemes in Vancouver's condo scene. Ku's wealth was being managed by the driven Banker Wong (Rosie Simon), who had little patience for profligate spenders and do-nothing socialites. Additional women including black-jack dealer Li (Zoé Doyle), "massage parlor" manager Charmaine (Louisa Zhu), and Sherry, one of the girls who worked there (Belinda Corpuz) also wove themselves into a narrative about the pragmatic, often tragic, intersection of women and money. Everyone on stage tonight was the victim of trauma.

There were several scenes that knocked me back with their intensity. But the two main pillars of this play ultimately left me unable to fully connect with these characters. Firstly, almost every scene was a monologue. A character was either recounting essentially a flashback or if the scene was more or less "present-day", it wasn't "as it happens". As such, I never felt I was witnessing a visceral moment with real people who were actually there. Everything was an oral story, a series of memoiristic vignettes. Even if "show, don't tell" doesn't apply 100% to theatre, this was all tell.

Secondly, there was too much melodrama. Lady Sunrise's interconnected stories (à la Pulp Fiction/22 Short Films About Springfield) was turned up to the max. After a while, the coincidences and backstories that made these characters interact just felt forced. Perhaps if spread out and elaborated over a TV series, it would feel more natural. When compressed into a 1h45m play, the playwright's pen was often visible.

There was a good story at the core of Lady Sunrise. I like seeing more stories about POC on the stage. And I also know that, without a doubt, many women have suffered similar experiences in real-life. But I could not commit to this tic-tac-toe script.