THE JAYHAWKS and MICHELLE MCADOREY at Lee’s Palace, Friday, June 10. Rating: NNN
It was a rare treat to catch the Jayhawks at Lee’s Palace on the first of two nights in Toronto. (The band opted for two intimate shows versus one large one.) The Minneapolis alt country rockers have never achieved the kind of success you’d expect, given their plentitude of great songs, and that could be why they’re so approachable: frontman Gary Louris could be seen hanging out in front of the venue having a cigarette before the show.
The band is touring its ninth album, Paging Mr. Proust, which marks the departure (again) of Mark Olson, who was with the band for the 2011’s Mockingbird Time. A number of the new songs – especially Lies In Black And White, Quiet Corners & Empty Spaces, Pretty Roses In Your Hair and I’ll Be Your Key (which the band saved for the encore) – came across well live.
But the band knew they were playing to long-time fans they opened with Waiting For The Sun (off 1992’s Hollywood Town Hall) and drew from the wonderful Tomorrow The Green Grass (1995), including bittersweet, immaculate Nothing Left To Borrow, plus their late 90s-early 00s output. “We’ll be doing some different songs tomorrow,” said Louris, jokingly adding, “because we’re so prolific and humble.”
The five-piece band included new multi-instrumentalist Chet Lyster, but it was Louris’s guitar playing that was the main attraction. On the surface it’s straight ahead, but then he’ll leap into a flurry of action. That said, the set gained momentum when Louris shared the spotlight: the slower Tampa To Tulsa, sung by drummer Tim O’Reagan, was a quiet knockout, the kind of moment where at a more sophisticated venue a spotlight would have been on him. Meanwhile toward the end of the set, keyboardist Karen Grotberg took a turn on vocals for honky tonkin’ I’m Down To My Last Cigarette.
For the encore, Louris tried something that hadn’t worked so well for opener Michelle McAdorey: playing quietly. McAdorey has teamed up with Will Kidman of the Constantines to do duo versions of songs from her new psych folk rock album, Into Her Future. It’s a promising collaboration, and their set had tentative, magical moments where the two were really listening to each other, but the crowd was too chatty to really appreciate McAdorey’s delicately challenging songs. Lee’s is not (usually) a folk venue.
Thankfully the crowd was quiet for Louris’s solo mini set in the encore, which included Settled Down Like Rain off Hollywood Town Hall and Angelyne. And when the band returned for I’ll Be Your Key, the Jayhawks achieved in the encore what had been missing from their main set: the kind of transcendent, consistent greatness they’re capable of. They’d also been saving Blue till then. What a song!
music@nowtoronto.com | @sarahegreene
