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Concert reviews Music

Bry Webb & the Providers get their Dead on at the Great Hall

BRY WEBB & THE PROVIDERS and ISLA CRAIG at the Great Hall, Thursday, July 16. Rating: NNNN


It may be slightly sacrilegious to say so – for what Canadian musician doesn’t dream of playing Massey Hall? – but the songs off Bry Webb & The Providers Live At Massey Hall seemed to come off better at the more ragged and intimate Great Hall last night than they did at the hallowed site of the live record’s performance in May last year. Chalk it up to the Providers being a well-oiled touring machine, the relative lack of pressure, or simply the proximity of the audience to the stage, but the band rocked the more modest hall in a way that you could feel in your body, which is how it should be – yes, even for folk rock.

On 2011’s Provider, the Constantines front man quieted right down – like to a near-whisper – for a collection of what he jokingly referred to as “sad dad” songs he’s been amping up since then, adding more instruments on Free Will and now in these live versions seems to be wholeheartedly embracing distortion and longer jam sessions. Webb and the Providers – Nathan Lawr on drums, Anna Ruddick on bass, Thom Hammerton on keys, and Rich Burnett and Aaron Goldstein on guitars and steel guitars (Burnett plays lap, Goldstein pedal) – delivered more souped-up versions of some of the songs: AM Blues was exciting, Receive Me huge, Rivers Of Gold more swelling yet Webb and a smaller version of the band were equally powerful during a more acoustic and sparse segment of the set, especially on Persistent Spirit, demonstrating that volume does not equal intensity.

Making no pretense to leave the stage before the encore (they hardly stepped off) the band jammed a little loosely on the Grateful Dead’s I Know You Rider before closing with Vaya con Dios.

music@nowtoronto.com | @sarahegreene

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