JENN GRANT, JOEL PLASKETT, BAHAMAS and PATRICK WATSON at Echo Beach as part of CBCMUSIC.CA Festival, Saturday, May 23. Rating: NNNN
CBCMusic.ca Festival felt more homegrown than it did in its Of Monsters and Men-headlined inaugural fest in 2013. It also (thankfully) seemed less Twitter-obsessed. Not that it was smaller – there was a sea of people present, especially for Joel Plaskett and Bahamas – but it had thinned out for Patrick Watson’s mellow, more abstract lamp-lit headlining set. (And no matter how much Watson talked about Hollywood and danced around in a T-shirt, we knew we were in for cool weather, as indicated by guitarist Joe Grass’s sensible toque and cut-off gloves.)
Bahamas’s Afie Jurvanen is pretty damn confident musically. He’s been giving vocalist Felicity Williams an increasingly prominent role in the band, stepping aside numerous times to let her shine, not as a backup singer, but as an exceptional accompanist. (Who needs a sax solo when her voice can stun by climbing up a tricky minor-key ladder like a series of bells?) Jurvanen’s thorny love songs and twangy lounge music were imbued with even more magic when he brought up Choir!Choir!Choir! to sing on Barchords’ hit Lost In The Light, and then got the audience to sing along to his guitar solos.
Earlier, Joel Plaskett and the Emergency “Plus” pleased the crowd with a set heavy on already classic-sounding songs from his newest album, The Park Avenue Sobriety Test – like the rambling and funky Alright OK, AM love song When I Close My Eyes and raggedly jangly anthem Broke. He also made a plea for folks to buy T-shirts to support Haligonian downtown arts institution the Khyber (of Down At The Khyber fame).
The East Coast was having a moment at Echo Beach as Emergency “Plus” guitarist Mo Kenney played to a packed tent (the fest’s tiny third stage), while Jenn Grant set up on the second one. Grant was good-humoured about the sound bleed from Coeur de Pirate on the main stage, yet it’s too bad songs from her beautiful fifth album, Compostela, didn’t get the quiet attention they deserve. Buck 65 joined her for a live debut of their duet Spades but – shame on him – he needed a cheat sheet for the lyrics.
music@nowtoronto.com | @sarahegreene
