Before too many words get in the way, one picture. Not the best picture I took on this tour in terms of quality or composition, but, in my own totally subjective, heart-on-my-sleeve estimation, it's the picture that best embodies the spirit, the hope, the courage, the power, and the success of this most recent tour. The picture is Alan singing Lucky Me as his encore song at the Chicago Vic Theatre show:
This photo works well as a visual representation of how they all brought their own music to those who wanted to share in the pleasure and delight of it, from Halifax to Vancouver, Los Angeles to Charlotte, Seattle to Atlanta, Tucson to Charlottetown, how they offered up both themselves and that music with an unfaltering belief that it and they would be responded to with all due appreciation, as well as how they responded with their own grateful wonder when that unfaltering belief came true before their eyes.
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The first word that they were planning to do "An Evening With Great Big Sea" theatre-venue shows surfaced some time last summer, around the time they did that short run of shows in the midst of the "long break" of 2005. It sounded intriguing, but also potentially problematic. Theatre-style shows, as well as theatre-style audiences, are a horse of a different colour (above or below the ice) from their more customary bar/club/rink shows. In the latter kind of shows, if you arrive on stage totally exhausted and/or three sheets to the wind and wearing the same rumpled clothes you've been in for the past few days, and then you proceed in missing your cues, blowing your lyrics, playiing the right chords at the wrong time, or indulging yourself in whatever your mood of the moment might be, chances are none of the above will be much of a problem for a loud, rowdy, sodden, screaming, jumping, clapping, ecstatic bar/club/rink crowd. Chances are next to no one will even notice, especially since the shitty acoustics of the venue itself will help to cover a multitude of musical sins.
One night a very long time ago (at least it feels like a very long time ago) Darrell cornered me after a show and asked me what I thought of how they had performed that night. I knew better than to give him outright bullshit, so I responded as honestly as I could and said I thought it had been a very fun show and that the crowd had loved every minute of it, which it had been and which they did. He snorted derisively at that and responded, "We were a pub band tonight. We're supposed to be beyond that by now." Telling him they had been a very good pub band that night didn't go all that far in mollifying him, nor, I would guess, did all the glowing reviews that were subsequently written about that show, my own included. The more I thought about the upcoming TH&TE tour and all those theatre venues, the more I recalled that conversation.
Not like what would happen should the pub band take the theatre stage was the sole concern. There was also the matter of performance dynamic. When the heart and soul of your band's performance dynamic are passion and energy, a dissolving of the boundary between stage and crowd and a call for people to join together with you and with each other in communal celebration, the formal (and sometimes stodgy) confines of the theatre can work to distance the performer from the audience, as well as to distance the audience members from one another. You have a much better chance of getting an attentive audience - with all of the potential pitfalls that can go with such attentiveness if your own performance is not at its best, as well as all the potential rewards if it is - but the challenge is finding and maintaining that delicate balance between "attentive" and "involved".
When I went to the St. Catherine's show at the end of this past summer, I was told that this show was more or less a dress rehearsal for the tour to come, with its two-set, first-the-new-CD's-trad-songs-and-then-the-hits format, as well as the new arrangements of some of the older material. They did very well at that show, in spite of clearly being nervous about it all (maybe most so because they would be filming that Bravo segment the next day). I was especially impressed by how Sean handled a share of the audience-interaction responsibility with the winningly adroit charm and sweetly cheerful manner he'd been showing at all of the scattered shows of this "break" year, and was nearly as impressed with the enthusiastic reception given to them by that St. Cat's crowd. But the thought of them pulling off this kind of show, of the likelihood of them all being able to summon up this level of discipline and concentration - as well as being able to find the audiences who would appreciate those achievements - repeatedly over the course of an entire "regular" tour, was a sobering one.
The more I thought about it, the more I remembered Sean's "We have stupidly huge plans" comment from the interview on the Koolhaus show webcast. Since I happen to have a perpetual soft spot for those with the courage (and audacity) to formulate "stupidly huge plans," I was looking forward to this tour with a mixture of fear and hope, though I will confess to feeling a deficit of optimism, a deficit that grew markedly deeper when the actual tour schedule came out in all of its brutal glory. "Stupidly huge" seemed barely to suffice as description of that itinerary. The potential for disaster seemed to overwhelm the chance for success.
Then I went to Australia to see Alan play a series of shows as a member of Russell Crowe's band, The Ordinary Fear Of God, and what I saw there tilted the balance from fear back to hope for what might lie ahead for GBS's own tour. Not only was this band thoroughly impressive for the unerringly professional way they played - I had almost forgotten what it was like to hear a band all start and stop at the same time, to all play loud or soft together at the same time, to play each and every song with precision and discipline, each and every show - they had also found a way to balance that precision with an equal amount of passion, and it made for a deadly combination.
Even better, it was clear that Alan was playing the role of "musical lieutenant" in this band, being the point man to whom the rest of the players looked for their cues for when and how to play, making it possible for Russell to turn his full concentration on his own front-man duties, and Alan played that role with a confident assurance and an unfailing poise that was a delight to watch. They even looked professionally cool, all in their suit jackets (well, most of them, anyway - there's always a rebel in the pack), and there was not a single moment when the focused attention of the band backing Russell was not solidly fixed on the music, except maybe when Elvis Costello joined them on stage. They did get a bit giddy then, but that seems excusable enough.
Of course, the irony of all this was that they were the ideal theatre-venue band, and they wound up playing quite a few of their gigs in pubs, with all the predictable results. But when they played the shows where the audience was seated and had come to listen to that beautifully-played music and enjoy the fascinating performance, it made for some of the best shows I have ever seen, shows that ran the gamut of emotional responses, from poignancy to hilarity and from impudence to tenderness, all of it underscored with that combination of musicial passion and precision. It also made for much hope that, along with that spiffy black jacket, Alan would also bring a good chunk of those performance ethics and standards back with him to this hemisphere to take with him on his next road trip.
But I also knew Alan would be bringing something else back with him from Australia: weariness from having just wound up one challenging tour, only to plunge straight into a second, still-more-gruelling run. His turnaround time was even more brutal than the upcoming tour schedule would be - after wrapping up an Australia Day (Jan 26th) show in Canberra with TOFOG, he would wind up in Ottawa on the 29th for a pre-tour corporate event, with the tour itself commencing in Brantford on the 31st. I'm not even going to try to guess how tired he was at the outset of this tour; all I know is that I was in a daze of my own in Brantford after following a similar but less-demanding route and schedule, starting this tour out with a weariness that would grow deeper and more insistently irrefuseable with time. I quite literally shuddered whenever I looked at the tour schedule, not for myself since I had no intention of making it to each show, but for him, knowing he had no choice in the matter. Sitting there in the Sanderson Centre before the first notes of the first show started up, I found myself hoping with all my heart that the Sean I had been seeing since the Winnipeg Junos would be the Sean who came along on this tour. Alan was going to need that Sean badly on the road ahead.
Now that I have (finally) gotten to the tour itself, a few caveats. I did not see every show on this tour (I skipped 15 of them, if my own count is correct, though I did hear the Lexington broadcast and will hear the Morgantown one as well), so there's no way for me to be making any overall blanket generalisations. For all I know, those 15 shows might have been the best (or the worst) shows of the entire tour in terms of individual and/or collective performances; it's not like you can tell very much from reading what's been written about most of those shows. All I can speak about is what I saw and heard, and even that is a bit different from how it's been in the past for one simple reason: I took no notes this tour, for the first time since before their Uprooted tour shows in 2002.
I stopped taking notes because I had been told this was a distraction for some, and even though it certainly was not my preferred way to experience these shows, it wound up having its own interesting results, with many moments from the shows blending together and shaping themselves into trends and patterns, as opposed to remaining discrete moments from a specific time and place. It felt a bit like the difference between a zoom lens and a wide-angle lens: what you lose in terms of some of the fine detail, you gain in terms of a breadth and depth of overall perspective. And the individual moments that do stand out in your memory - such as those two times Alan sang Lucky Me as his solo encore (once at Chicago and once in Burlington), or the look of total adoration the Littlest Mermaid gave Sean in Windsor, as well as the sultry guitar-pounding and giddy hip-swinging dances during Jesse's Girl at venues across the continent, maybe most of all the sweet smiles of delight, relief, gratitude, and accomplishment...and then there was that heart-aching Clearest Indication trio encore at their anniversary show in Cleveland - shine with a brightness that dazzles, sometimes almost painfully so. Those are the moments when it was my heart taking the notes, not my pen.
Much of the rest of it does resolve itself into those trends and patterns, and even when I am recalling a moment from a specific show, I am not going to spend much time listing and comparing individual shows. Some of these shows were truly superb, some were much more of a struggle; some of these shows featured tremendous individual performances, and some just the opposite. I know full well how many prefer to believe "their" show was at least as wonderful, if not more so, than anyone else's show, and I've no desire to rain on anyone's parade by saying otherwise. Besides, to go through shows one by one, or to pull up a host of specfic examples from individual shows, would make this even more prohibitively long than it is already going to wind up being. So, trends and patterns it is, as always with the biggest caveat of all: This is simply the opinion of one person.
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Technical Stuff - Maybe not the most likely place to start, but it's at least one of the few "acceptable" places to point out issues and problems, so maybe it will work as an "easing into" more dangerous waters.
Over the course of these shows, the sound was all over the place, and it seemed like an intense learning experience was taking place for how to mic a band that was switching mid-show from acoustic non-drum-kit instrumentation to electric-with-drums instrumentation, same with the notion of figuring out how to balance voices and instruments in venues whose splendid acoustics clearly (and sometimes ruthlessly) revealed all that was right and all that was wrong with that balance, especially after having done sound in so many venues where you have to fight the venue's poor acoustics to get the music heard properly. On occasion, especially in the early shows, the excellent acoustics were being fought, but those acoustics were winning the battle, with sometimes-unfortunate results. This was one of those "adjustment and growth over time" matters, as the sound gradually came around to working with the venue acoustics instead of against them, especially when it came to the stringed instruments (some of the most gorgeous-sounding bouzouki playing I have ever heard, anywhere at all), with the singular exception of Bob's banjo. All those shows and I don't think I ever heard that banjo hardly at all at any of them. There were all sorts of troubles with the voices being pushed up too much (I still feel awful for the one night I had to put my fingers in my ears when Sean was singing a lovely but godawfully loud General Taylor, but pain won out over propriety), though the balance of the vocal parts was usually good enough. All in all, it was a continuing process, and one in which steady progress was made over the course of what had to be a very challenging assignment for any sound men.
I wish I could say the same about the lights. For the longest time, I told myself that those glaring eye-level lights set up behind the band - the ones that periodically swing out and totally blind a large number of people in the front rows (bad enough that those who had been to prior shows went about kindly warning newbies to be sure to look away and this or that point in a song) - must be creating some grand effect up in the balcony that was so special it warranted making it so the people in the front can't see a bloody thing. Then I finally saw a show from up in the balcony. What those lights do is shine so brightly that instead of backlighting the men on stage, their glare is so intense that pretty much all you can see from up there is the glow of the lights, along with the cringing people in the front rows who are covering their eyes, while those on stage are in shadow instead of being backlit. Maybe the grand effect is for the people at the back of the main floor. Or maybe someone needs to scope out how those light effects actually affect different spots in the venues.
I am so biased against the fog machine that I'll try to let that one more or less pass by, except to say that when I am sitting in the fifth or sixth row at a show and I turn my head to look at the other audience members sitting directly across from me and I can barely seen them because they are enshrouded by billows of faux fog that have rolled off the stage...well, that might be an indication that the fog effect is a bit overdone. For some of the shows on this tour, it looked like they cut back on the use of the fog machine during the first set, which I thought was a very good call given their attempt to be as authentic as possible to the tradition from which the music came (though one could always argue that the fog was a re-creation of home), and at a few venues they didn't use it at all, though that might have been the venue's call instead of their own.
I think there is a time and a place for fog machines and light shows, especially when they're playing in large venues and the people up in the nosebleeds can only see tiny hair-flipping figures down on a distant stage - it makes sense at those kind of shows to give those people up in the nosebleeds all of the artistry and beauty that can be conjured up with that fog/light mixture. But these were intimate shows in small venues, with nary a bloody nose to be found. When the lighting effects were subtle - such as how Murray and Bob were lit during the Tishialuk Girls instrumental intro, with the rest of the stage in darkness, or how Sean was backlighted during Sweet Forget Me Not and Bob during Come And I Will Sing You - they were wonderfully effective. But when the lights reached for bigger and bolder effects, to me, they tended toward being...well, how about using the word "distracting" again?...in these intimate shows.
I'm going to include photography and video here, since it's a topic that's not going to fit much of anywhere else. The whole experience was rather inconsistent, to put it politely. My personal practice is always to bring my camera to shows (half the reason being I do not like leaving my camera in a car or a hotel room) and letting events decide my course of action. If a venue does not allow cameras, they are wlecome to check mine for me. If they allow cameras inside but say no photos are allowed, I wait and see what happens once the show begins, wait to see if others are taking photos and what happens to those others. Far be it from me to blaze any photographic trails; others are more than welcome to take the lead. This is the biggest reason why I have almost no photos of the two opening songs on this tour, Captain Kidd and Donkey Riding; at nearly every venue on this tour there were signs and warnings that no photography was permitted, yet once the show began, at most of the shows, hordes of people were merrily snapping away from the get-go, many using flash, even more from the very front rows.
At some shows, this would send the venue staff scurrying about, cautioning everyone against their photographic transgressions. On several occasions, I listened while fans argued with venue staff members, telling them that there was now an Official Tour Photo Album on the Great Big Sea web site and that "the band" had specifically asked for pictures to be taken at shows and submitted to that album. Sometimes the staff prevailed, more often they did not. I''m not sure anyone present had a clear understanding of what we should or should not have been doing.
Then there is the matter of videos, especially digital-camera videos. For the longest time, it's been implicitly accepted among most GBS fans that any live-show video has been more or less verboten at their shows, more from a concern about capturing substandard audio than about preserving video imagery. Up until partway into this tour, I'd used my camera's video function exactly three times in a "GBS" context: I recorded the second time they performed River Driver live last summer at Fergus (would have recorded it the first time, but that was at the strictly no-cameras Wolf Trap venue), I recorded a snippet of Alan's sizzling WIAK lead solo at the Calgary Stampede show a few days later (that was simply for the pure, unadulterated pleasure of having it to replay whenever I wanted to see and hear it yet again), and I recorded Alan filming a music video with Russell's band in France later that same summer. I've never made the France video public, and only made the River Driver one public recently. Of course, I couldn't resist putting his lead solo up online right after recording it. I only have so much discipline. Other than that, I'd stayed clear of videoing them at their shows.
But, again, inconsistency reigned on this tour. Despite all those "no recording devices" signs, there was no shortage of people openly videoing the shows, with the result being much the same as it was with the still photography - halfhearted venue opposition followed quickly by total capitulation in most instances. And despite it having been accepted for such a long time that "GBS hates being recorded," now suddenly there was a live-show video on their official site, made by none other than the site's admin, followed promptly (and not at all suprisingly) by message-board posts of more live-show video files. If people who go to shows are confused about what is or is not right to do in terms of photography and video/audio, then I find that confusion perfectly understandable.
Set Lists - Though the first set stayed rather rigid throughout the duration of the tour (I think the only variations I ever saw in this set were an all-too-seldom substitution of Jolly Rovin' Tar for Gideon Brown and the sadly short-lived every-other-show-a-different-horse-through-the-ice early-tour switching back and forth from Charlie Horse one night to Tickle Cove Pond the next night), there was more variety to be found from show to show in the second, "The Hits," set, especially during the earlier shows on the tour, which was when such songs as Something Beautiful (also done in Nashville, an excellent call), Penelope, and Turn were heard by those lucky enough to be at those early shows. It was an effective set, especially after they did a bit of shuffling of song order and got the compelling River Driver in an optimum spot, even more so with the way it ended with such punch with those "two songs about boats," Old Polina and Lukey, which served not only to cap off that first set with a bang, but also to lead well into the higher energy of the set to come. The only song that tended to fall a little flat on some nights was Scolding Wife, and was that mostly because a few of them look and sound a bit tired of doing that one (not Murray - he gets better every show with his sole vocal-limelight moment). I found myself wishing several shows that it would be Scolding that was substituted for with Tickle Cove, hoping the show would follow in the rare and wonderful footsteps of the CD in featuring two songs about horses falling t'rough the ice.
The other major "substitution spots" were the second-set alternate opening choices of WIAK/When I'm Up/Paddy Murphy/Beat The Drum or Shines Right Through/When I'm Up/Paddy Murphy/WIAK, and also the rotating "Sean Spot," where either Turn, John Barbour, or (most often by far) General Taylor were performed. In Seattle, an insistent and well-harmonising crowd sang Sean into adding General Taylor, regardless of what the set list said. There were also nights when the living-room version of Sea Of No Cares gave way to the radio/CD version. The most significant set-list change of all was that splendid shift from the expected frenzy of Old Black Rum as the show closer in the early going to the quiet awe of Old Brown's Daughter for most of the rest of the way. Other than that major change, the encores did not vary much, but when they did, that variance was powerful: those two wonderful Lucky Me's, the poignant anniversary Clearest, and that gorgeous Original Three version of Boston & St. John's in Somerville.
There were a whole host of momentary wanders from - or additions to - the set list, all of them delightful, including Sean's Danny Boy and his Hangin' Johnny, as well as his Banana Boat renditions, along with Alan's killer turns as Freddie Mercury and his showing a hot hand with a bit of ACDC guitar glory, even singing some classic (and suitably titled) Roger Miller. Then there was that shining moment of all-band Abba, even brief flings with Farewell To Nova Scotia and Doo Wah Diddy. The pre-Run, Runaway singalongs varied by night and mood, with Alan's Phantom, at its most impressive when Bob played along and added that mournful fiddle part to Alan's stirring (and sensuously sliding) guitar work, perhaps the one that went the best with all of those classy "the-ah-tre" surroundings, though not much could top the pounding and posturing that Alan and Sean did on Jesse's Girl and Sweet Dreams, at least as far as I'm concerned.
Overall, it seemed an extremely successful blend of sets and songs, planned and impromptu alike, a blend that matched what many in the audience wanted, but still challenged them just enough to encourage them to broaden their horizons and expand their notions of what to expect at a Great Big Sea show. One of the greatest accomplishments each night took place during the fourth song when, after sharing in all the energy and enthusiasm of Captain Kidd, Donkey Riding, and Jack Hinks, nearly every audience found itself capable of settling down and listening raptly to Sean's wisfully tender Sweet Forget Me Not. After having seen Sean's quieter songs be treated with a careless and sometimes boorish lack of consideration by so many crowds at so many other shows, the attention that was consistently paid to him for this song, as well as the warmth of the response he received at song's end, felt like something important and lasting might be being accomplished in the shows of this tour. Their whole first set came across as far more balanced in terms of mixing tempos than has ever been the case with GBS shows, or at least those shows I've seen, and nearly all of those crowds (yes, there were notable exceptions) followed their lead willingly from the buoyant to the gentle to the stirring to the exhilarating; again, it felt like new possibilities might be opening up right before our eyes and ears.
The sole complaint I'd make about their second set is that I thought it contained too many cover songs and too many carryover trad songs, though when you call a set "The Hits," it is very difficult not to include Paddy Murphy and Mari Mac or When I'm Up and Run, Runaway in that set. I still wish they would give their own originals more of the spotlight they deserve and would have been very happy to see the likes of Clearest Indication, Something Beautiful, Let It Go, Love, Stumbling In, Own True Way, Boston, Goin' Up, and Feel It Turn in regular rotation with their other originals as a direct counterpoint to the first-set trad songs and a showcase of their versatility. But I suspect at least part of the choice of which songs wound up in that second set was based on familiarity of playing, since there was so much new material being performed in the first set, and even some of the familiar songs were their own challenge from the instrumental rearrangements and tempo adjustments.
The rest of that choice was likely based on giving the audience what they most wanted, something at which they succeeded quite well at nearly every show, still managing to show considerable artistic versatility in a set that began with the electrified explosion of either Shines or WIAK and eventually would find its end in those gorgeous a cappella OBDs. That versatility is even more impressive when the range of songs, styles, genres, instrumentation, vocals, modes and moods over the course of the entire show is taken into consideration; to be able to sweep audience after audience along with them on that mercurial musical excursion might be the greatest single accomplishment of the entire tour.
One last, semi-related note here about the live-show arrangements: They really were almost uniformly wonderful, and all due praise to whoever is responsible for them. On the long ride back home, I decided to listen to the TH&TE CD for the first time since well before this tour began, and I was struck by how good the live arrangements were in comparison, even as they differed substantially from some of the CD's arrangements. I remember thinking at the tour's outset that they were going to have a difficult time playing live without the support they had on the CD from such stellar musicians as Fergus O'Byrne and without being able to reproduce in a live show the effects of muti-tracking both the instrumentals and the vocals, but they made some excellent adjustments. I preferred the live-version arrangements over the CD versions for several songs, especially Come And I Will Sing You (quite the challenge to make what is essentially the 12 Frigging Days Of Christmas into a live song that holds your interest musically, but they pulled it off) and the harmonies on River Driver. Using the bass fiddle on so many of those drumless first-set songs was a brilliant stategy, and subbing the bass fiddle solo and the accordion/whistle duet for the CD's harmonica solo part in Sweet Forget Me Not was pure genius too.
The Audience - For those just wandering in, I covered this one halfway well in a prior post, so scroll down a bit if you're a real glutton for wordy punishment. There's just one thing I'd like to add to what I wrote before: I really missed the Newfoundlanders this time around. It took me a few shows to figure out where they'd gotten off to and to find them, but once I did (much farther back in most the venues, often up in the balconies), it all made sense. Most of the front rows at these shows were under the control of the GBS official site Best Seats presale program. With some notable exceptions, most of the displaced Newfoundlanders who might wind up at shows aren't all that actively involved in online GBS fan sites, and others told me they lacked the funds to buy so far in advance for up-close show tickets. Still others wanted no part of buying tickets "you know not where". Of all the "regular types" you might run across at GA GBS shows, it was those displaced Newfoundlanders I wound up missing the most by far.
The Performances - I'm not sure if I've been saving the best for last or putting it off as long as possible, maybe a bit of both. Over the course of a long, gruelling tour, it's reasonable to expect that there would be a range of performances from each band member, with some nights being better than others, and some nights being worse. This is how things work with flesh-and-blood human beings, as opposed to fictional creations. Sounds simple and reasonable, for sure, but for some reason it's not the way GBS performances are usually described, so much so that I am really having a hard time trying to break that pattern and be a bit more honest than in the past. It feels like there are sharks in the surrounding waters, and that nearby island over there looks to be populated with sacred cows and ruled by an Emperor badly in need of some new threads. But I keep hearing what someone I respect very much said to me not long ago: "If everyone thinks your performance is great even when it's shitty, then how do you ever get to feel the way you should when that performance really is great?" That struck a nerve with me, a nerve immediately adjacent to the "same review for the past year and a half" nerve.
Lucky me that it is so rarely a matter of an outright shitty performance with these players and so often a matter of a great one. Less-lucky me that there is that troubling issue of consistency with which to deal, and for this tour, that trouble showed up in the least likely of places. For the past few years, actually for all the time I've known about GBS, it has been Sean who's been the poster child for inconstancy on stage, sometimes being an impudent ray of devilish sunshine, more often being a morose little thundercloud raining profusely on his own parade. But even during his extended Am I Blue period, there were two things you could always count on: Whatever mood he came out with would be the mood of the evening (consistency in inconsistency - so many times I've seen Alan test the waters of McCann early in a show to see if Sean would be coming out to play on this evening, and when the answer was a pensive stare that shouted its own silent but emphatic "No," Alan would simply make the adjustment and move along with the show); and, most important, no matter how miserable his mood might be, Sean would play and sing his parts with his usual competence, even if he was having no part of sharing the crowd-interaction/witty repartee job with Alan on that night.
It was Sean's history of consistency in inconsistency that had me so worried as I sat there waiting for the first show of this brutal tour to begin; even though all that I'd seen ofSean had been quite cheerfully the opposite during the preceding year, that had still been a year of few-and-far-between shows and now there was this bitch of a tour run ahead for them all, with Alan starting out on that run already tired. There was no way Alan was going to make it to the end of this race - even just in terms of the pure pragmatics of keeping his pipes intact - if he was going to wind up shouldering the lion's share of the front-man duties. This one was going to have to be shared by Alan and Sean, shared each and every night, not shared only when Sean felt in the mood to play along but also on the nights when he was tired and bored and it was the last frigging thing in the world he felt like doing. If Sean was going to do all that, be that committed and that disciplined over the course of an entire tour, it was going to be the first time I'd ever seen it.
In the midst of all this worry about Sean, it never really occurred to me to worry about how Bob would do. On past tours, Bob had been Sean's mirror image when it came to consistency, his opposite in all things, putting on the same performance, wearing the same performance face, show after show after show. If Sean had been the poster child for inconstancy, then Bob could have been the same for immutability.
It just goes to show that no matter how many shows a person has seen, there is always ample room for the unexpected when it comes to live performance.
How it wound up turning out was far from what I'd expected or feared. From the first moment when he walked out on stage in Brantford to his last bows in Mississauga, the Sean I saw was the single most consistent player on those stages, though the initial bounce in his step did get slowly and inexorably worn down by that killer schedule. Still, he kept his cheerful face on for the duration, even if he did grow more serious as the miles ground implacably on; he never missed or shirked a cue for a song intro or a segue, he took part in the banter routines every single night, and he added some priceless jewels of his own on more than a few nights (my personal favourite was "Smitten College"). On one occasion or another, he made everyone else on stage laugh, often at times when a laugh was most needed, no one more often than Alan, who probably needed that laughter more often than anyone else. Murray and Kris also provided solid and consistent support - Kris (the true multi-instrumentalist of GBS, to my way of thinking) focusing most of his energies on keeping up the spirits of his fellow band mates and Murray reaching out a bit more to interacting with the crowd (as well as having his first "lead solo" on the big instrument) - but it was Sean who was the most steadfast of all, and there was most certainly a time when I would have sworn I'd have never typed those words. Last but not least, his Sweet Forget Me Not and Mermaid performances provided some of the best moments of the entire tour.
Bob's road was rougher, particularly during the first two legs of the tour. His performances varied greatly, some nights excellent, some nights rocky at best, even more nights a disconcerting combination of both, veering back and forth between extremes, with his frame of mind seemingly as changeable as was his performance; he would go from glaring and glowering out into the crowd to hanging about at the back of the stage with an acerbic and disdainful air about him to stepping up with the megawatt stage grin when it came time for "his" songs and solos (which were almost always done very well, especially that whistle part in Tishialuk Girls and his Jack Hinks and Billy Peddle accordion parts) to retreating back with what looked for the world like a "I'd so much rather be other places than this" expression - all in one show. It was, to use that word again, positively distracting. But, of course, when those shows wound up being written about, all that usually got said was, "Bob smiled!" leaving me wondering on occasion if perhaps I had attended some alternate-universe show.
I'm not even going to begin to hazard a guess as to what the trouble might have been - except maybe to note that in addition to it being such a demanding schedule there was also a large amount of new material being played on this tour, along with those new arrangements of the older tunes, and that might have been the cause a good deal of stress - instead, I'll say simply that it did get better as the tour progressed, and that the shows where Bob's performance level was up to where it has customarily been in the past were some of the best shows of the entire tour. And before the usual subjects begin looking around for appropriately sized rocks and gathering up kindling for the fire, I'll take this opportunity to re-state that "This is simply the opinion of one person" notion I already said way back when.
I've saved Alan for last, as always. I could describe Alan's tour performance in one sentence - He was not the Great Big Sea Guy, hallelujah and amen - but that kind of succinctness would be unforgiveably out of character for me and would cheat so many out of their easy path to dismissal of what is said. It also would be so much less pleasurable that it is going to be to elaborate on that one sentence.
One persistent criticism that some have made of Alan's performances is that he shows too much need for approval from any and all elements within his audiences, that he can at times be somewhat obsequious in seeking approval and affirmation from even the most obnoxious and demanding of those elements, giving them whatever it is they are expecting from him at the moment, which is most often that he play the part of the simple-minded, perpetually cheerful "fountain of affection" whose fondest and dearest wish, perhaps even his sole and singular purpose, is to expend all of his energies toward making those obnoxious and demanding elements feel happy. While I can see where that criticism comes from, I've seen that same tendency of his more as part and parcel of the drive and desire that make him the incomparable performer he is, though I will admit there have been those times when I've thought that if he did not find a better way to harness and direct that drive and desire, he could be running the risk of being metaphorically eaten alive by the rapacious appetites of the insatiably needy.
I thought about this same matter while watching the shows in Australia, seeing how Russell handled himself with those same demanding-element types. If ever there were a man not destined to wind up on a predator's lunch menu, Russell Crowe is that man. And if I had started out seeing the shows on that tour hoping that Alan would learn a thing or two or three from Russell in that regard, it didn't take long at all to notice that Alan, intelligent and insightful fellow that he is, was already a dozen or so steps ahead of my wishful thinking. The TOFOG member named Alan Doyle was like and yet unlike that fellow I'd been seeing around and about on a multitude of stages for the past few years, still possessing all the familiar passion and energy, even smiling the same endearing smiles and sputtering the same pissy petulance, but now he was also a man with an air about him that was simultaneously self-aware, self-assured, and self-accepting - now there was an attitude of quiet authority that said calmly "This is who I am, accept me as I am or not, as you choose" - something I'd only seen tantalizingly brief glimpses of in the past. It was an attitude that played perfectly in support of Russell, as well as to those free-spirited Aussie crowds, and it left me in awe of him, even in his supporing-player role, and feeling a deeper awe still at the realisation of all that he could accomplish by being that same man on home stages.
Over the course of the shows I saw on the TH&TE tour, from my vantage point, I saw Alan make significant strides toward re-defining his role as GBS's front man, and time and time again at these shows I saw that same man I first saw in that other hemisphere. He was always a welcome sight, and it was his sure and resolute hand that played a huge role in persuading so many of those crowds to follow along on those mercurial musical excursions. He was the one who found the way to bridge the gap and strike the balance between the passive, attentive crowd and the active, involved crowd, and he did it by binding those crowds to him at the outset of each show, challenging them with their own responsibility for making this show be as wonderful as all those who wished they could be there might imagine it would be, a far different tactic than if he had tried to beguile or charm them into compliance with his wishes. When fools threatened to win the day, he squelched them with a wickedly cutting wit (such as his "photo opportunity" in Sydney, and his "then why don't you tell the children about Santa Claus" in Somerville and his discourses on not shouting out too soon in numerous cities) rather than placate them. It was because of all that he had done to establish his unquestioned authority during the course of these shows that made it possible for him to hush the restless and the unruly - to silence the usually unstoppable cries for Old Black Rum - with no more than a wave of his hand during those breathtaking a cappella Old Brown's Daughter renditions at the end of so many shows.
Instead of playing the one-note role of the Happy Idiot, Alan was relentlessly three-dimensional in these shows, sometimes sweet and silly, sometimes sincere and serious, and on occasion prickly and possessing a pointedly sharp edge. Few regular routines in these shows were as fascinating as were his "What do bands that don't have Bob do, anyway?" routine. For each and every person who took these comments as innocent and genuine praise of his band mate, all I can say is that you are all most entitled to your own interpretation of Alan's intent. But after hearing Alan go on and on at multiple shows about how being Bob-less must necessarily mean that the likes of the Beatles, U2, Pink Floyd, ColdPlay, and Led Zeppelin would have to suck, "innocent" and "praise" aren't the first words that come to my mind. I learned fairly quickly that when a Newfoundlander is effusively praising someone else, chances are excellent that what's really taking place isn't praise at all (the single greatest bit of praise ever given to me by any Newfoundlander may have been when one fellow on a bus said, in the quietest and most casual of tones, "You should listen to her...she's some smart," to his buddy, with whom I'd been engaged in a lively debate). The more effusive the speaker becomes, the less that praise likelihood becomes. For all of the laughter they caused - and there were those shows where that laughter took on a decidedly uncomfortable edge - I saw those routines as a classic example of "light-hearted on the surface as the knife-edge slides in deep down below" Newfoundland-style humour, with the thrust of that jagged-edge humour focused squarely on a rather touchy subject.
There was a time not long ago when it would have been very unlikely for Alan to stand up on stage and wield quite so keen a blade of humour. Here's hoping that time is permanently over and done with; I'd choose that three-dimensional man over all other options each and every day, despite the risk of getting cut to the bone on one of those sharp edges. Along with the sheer stubborness of his determination to keep on going no matter how weary he became, it was his insistence on continuing to be that three-dimensional man - on having the courage to leave it up to others to decide whether or not to accept that three-dimensional man - while resisting (a few times just barely) the temptation to fall back into old patterns that impressed me the most of all the good things he accomplished on this tour.
Musically, he played the cleanest I've ever seen him play with GBS at most of the shows, without sacrificing any of his usual pounding passion in the achieving of that precision; he played the way I'd seen him play in Australia. Maybe those shows were a big influence in how well he played on this tour (his bouzouki work was especially excellent, as was his electric-guitar playing, though he held back way too much on the latter for my tastes, or for what the songs needed), and maybe there was also the sobering effect of less pre-gig "celebration" this time around for many of the shows. When I'd first seen that tour schedule back in the fall, my initial thought had been that he'd never be able to keep his voice, not with runs of six and seven consecutive shows in a row (and back then there was no way of knowing about add-ons such as corporate gigs and those promo kitchen parties), but he (and Sean) managed it somehow, though a few times his pipes threatened to rebel on one or two of those River Drivers.
But he got through it, as did they all, with determination and a resolve to make this tour into that most successful of all their tours thus far. Maybe the most compelling image for how this tour ended, the companion image for the one I began this with, would be this one:
I wound up with quite the collection of Old Brown's Daughter shots, but of all of them, it's this one I like the best, partly because it shows all five of them standing side by side and shoulder to shoulder as equals, each man carrying his part and doing his share, and partly because this one was taken the day after the bus accident, and it brings back that feeling of breathless relief, theirs as well as ours, that at the end of this day, as well as at the end of this tour, they really were alright.
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It's next to impossible (at least for me) not to be curious about what the future might hold, and also to wonder if some of what I'd consider genuine breakthroughs on this tour - seeing Sean step forward and become the performer he's always been capable of being, Alan's own version of coming into his full potential, watching both those on stage and those off stage learning that there is indeed a way to pay attention to a show as well as to participate in that show, discovering that it is possible for a GBS live show to encompass a full range of musical tempos and emotional responses, as well as a full range of genres and instrumentation - will lead to changes in how shows are performed and perceived during whatever future tours might take place, with whatever lineups might be taking those shows out on the road and playing whatever style or styles of music they choose to play. It was a tour with no shortage of successes, along with its fair share of struggles, and it was also a tour that's left me with my own set of questions.
I said earlier that the way they swept their audiences along through each change of genre and style, mood and mode, might have been the single greatest accomplishment of this tour, but if that were the case, it would be followed close behind by that other great accomplishment, the one Alan alluded to time and time again, in cities scattered all across the continent: How strange and wonderful it was to be standing on stages in Tucson or Charlotte or Atlanta or Victoria singing the songs that were the expression of the hearts and souls of folks from such places as Tickle Cove and Petty Harbour and Fogo Island, the songs they themselves had grown up singing, how special it was to be sharing such an important part of their own home when they were so far away from that home and to see how the people in those faraway places were accepting those songs with such obvious pleasure and delight. Forging those kinds of connections across time and distance is an amazing legacy for any artists, and quite the testimony to the power of their music.
Whatever the future may hold - as scary and uncertain as the unknown can sometimes seem - and however things wind up working out, my money is on the end result one way or another being more of the kind of music that has this power to reach out and connect with others and to be such a source of pride and pleasure, not at all a risky bet when you have faith in the men who have created that music before. In the midst of all change and growth, any permutations or adaptations, that music is most likely to remain the one constant. And, to pilfer yet another phrase from a writer who's got all my admiration, that's good enough for me.
