"Feel It Turn"- GBS Spring Tour: Moving From Expectation To Hope, Part One
Men At Work: Great Big Sea, Captain Kidd - Collingswood, New Jersey
I never have expectations; I only have hopes. - Alan Doyle
I've taken some time getting around to writing about the second leg of the GBS Spring Tour, partly because of the "coming-back-from-being-away" transition effect, but also partly because I've been waiting to see if perhaps Alan might have some of his own concluding comments to make about this tour in his online journal. But enough time has gone by now that I don't think that's going to happen, which, honestly, concerns me a bit. Alan's established a writing pattern of having his say much of the time when he feels confident and in control of what's going on around him, times when he's feeling just a bit full of himself (endearingly so), and much of the time when he's proud of what's just happened or looking forward to what is right ahead of him. Sometimes, silence truly can be the loudest thing ever heard. Hence the concern.
I suppose I could just go back to my own hoping that he's so busy, so happily and creatively busy with all of his hundred things on the go - personal and professional, coming-back-from-being-away transitions included - that's he's got neither the time nor the inclination to write up a tour summary for an online journal. And there are also hockey playoffs ablade now; a good portion of my own time these past days has been spent cheering for the Cup to wind up north of the border, even more of his time doing the same, I'd guess. So many excellent explanations at hand to make Concern feel foolish for remaining...and yet here she still is, quietly and persistently abiding.
But time enough has passed, and even though it's always safer to write about their shows after Alan has himself done the same - one of these days I am sure to say that some show was one of their weakest ever right before he goes on about how it was the best show they ever played, or, much more likely, I am going to say a show was great and then he will say that show was a rough one, far more likely this scenario since any show I see as being weak he is going to already know the same about that show far better than I can notice or describe - if he's not going to have his say, then I might as well start out with my own, at least make a beginning of it, though I think it will take me a few entries to get it all said. Not nearly as long as it's going to take me to get all the photos edited and videos uploaded, but still not all in this entry; I think I'll wait until later to say something about individual shows and keep this one focused on The Big Picture, as I saw that Picture, of course.
I made initial comments about the first leg of the GBS Spring Tour in an earlier entry here, right at the end of that leg and heading into the break. In that entry I quoted a comment Alan made in his online journal at a time when he clearly did feel like having his say, a comment so pertinent to the overall impression I wound up with after seeing most of the shows on both legs of the GBS Spring Tour that I'm quoting it here again:
I find myself writing a lot these days with the GBS show, and not the CD or album in mind. Is that a problem, I wonder? Am I limiting myself by giving in to the temptation to write a concert and not a record? Not sure. The two set show does allow for such a wide variety of tempo and style that I am starting to believe that anything goes. Hmm. We'll see. - Alan Doyle, March 26 journal entry
"Anything goes" has never before been the phrase that comes first (or second, or tenth, or fiftieth) to my mind as any kind of description of Great Big Sea. The very first contact I had with their message board was to walk into a long-standing pissfest about how seldom they altered their set list; one of the recurring dismissals of GBS I came across during the first few years of talking to people about them was that they tried so hard to be harmlessly palatable and most of all so relentlessly fun for every person at all times that it made them seem simplistic and limited to some.
Over the course of seeing many (make that "Many") of their shows, I came to realise the whys and wherefores of such complaints, with set lists and with most other aspects of their shows as well, repetition and a determined rejection of chance-taking of any sort (no talk of religion or politics at the GBS supper table, same with anything beyond naughty-lilttle-boy sex talk - always give the impression that you rarely ever think any deep thoughts or say any really bad words, and you certainly never actually fuck anyone, for God's sake) being constants in their shows.
That they have managed to put on such exciting shows, even more that they have managed to create such excellent original music while working within these this-is-not-who-we-truly-are constraints - constraints that seem to have been partly created by the expectations of their early crowds (expectations all tangled up in what some people thought a Newfie Party Band should be like) and partly created or at the very least deliberately nurtured by themselves, part and parcel of the time-honoured (and desperately-needs-to-be-scuttled) Newfoundland tradition of encouraging foolish Mainlanders toward even greater depths of foolishness in how those Mainlanders think less of Newfoundlanders than they should - is nothing short of amazing. But the price that must have been exacted for such achievements in the face of such perceptions has to be terrible. The damage shows, and not only in the men who make up the entity known as Great Big Sea.
Over the past few years, as Alan has come more and more into his own as a songwriter in his work away from Great Big Sea with Russell Crowe and with other collaborators, it's become painfully obvious that some of the very best of what Alan has been writing/co-writing would likely never be able to be Great Big Sea songs since these songs are far more honest, sometimes brutally so and with a deadly cutting edge, than has ever before been permitted in GBS's "necessarily upbeat and optimistic" catalogue. (As always, the same might well be true of what Sean and Bob have been writing away from GBS, but since those songs haven't become public, it's impossible to say for sure, though I have heard that Sean had to wait a disgracefully long time for "Love" to be accepted as a "proper" GBS song because of its fleeting political references.) Even of those songs of Alan's that did become GBS songs, two of the best songs he's ever written that wound up on GBS CDs (Lucky Me and Let It Go) were among those he wrote with a non-GBS collaborator (Gordie Sampson, for both songs).
When you see the creative energy of the members in a band begin to move outside of the circle of that band, that's usually a sign of a need for change, some kind of change. When comments such as "The best business decision we could make was to keep the band together" start getting made, along with on stage discussions of how the band is going to become a River Dance/Tim Horton's sort of band, things begin to look rather bleak. Add in all the private corporate shows GBS has been doing for just about anyone willing to come up with the required hefty fee ("Whores that we are..." as Sean says in one of those podcasts), and you've got nearly all the necessary ingredients for one of those cynical, jaded, stagnant Greatest Hits-type bands who play carelessly for the blue-haired chain-smokers on the casino circuit and put in their indifferent hour for the fat cats and their shrill spouses at the private party. It's a scenario that's been played out so many times before by so many bands.
But that's not what's happening with GBS. Not yet, at least, not by a long shot. Instead, beyond expectation if not quite beyond hope...Alan is starting to believe that "anything goes". And after what I have seen and heard at these most recent shows during GBS's Spring Tour, I'm beginning to believe it too.
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Even if this second tour leg might have at times been a bit less bold and daring than the first one was - possibly a result of having to deal with more deeply ingrained fan expectations in the Northeast than they'd faced in the Midwest during the first tour leg, along with their own occasional indulgence in those attitudes and behaviours that tend to take some of the edge off the focus and intensity demanded of the bold and daring (change never being easy for any of those swept along in its current) - this second set of shows was still a notable and significant effort, still a part of a continuing process of ground-breaking change.
There is so much that GBS is doing differently of late - not only on this most recent tour, though many of the preceding changes now seem to reaching for a greater potential and impact during these latest shows - that it surprises me a bit how few people seem to be commenting about it, publicly at least. But only that bit of surprise, because talking about "change" in the world of Great Big Sea can get one in a whole heap of trouble with the ones who earnestly desire nothing more than that every single Great Big Sea show/CD/band member be exactly the same as it/they/he were the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that, all the way back to whenever that person first came across the band, for if GBS remains frozen in time, then that means that the person seeing GBS can still pretend that time and time's inevitable changes have not had their way with them either, at least for the duration of a show or a song.
The tension between the desire (and likely the survival-level need) for change that's coming through from the men on stage and how that change is (and at times is not) being embraced by the people who've been coming to GBS's recent shows has been the predominant dynamic of these shows. To the objective observer who is fascinated by the interaction between performers and their audiences, that would make these shows utterly rivetting; to the subjective observer whose fascination along those lines is handily trumped by an even more deeply felt affection for the performers, and most of all by the stubborn hope that one of those performers will find a way to get as much as possible of what he needs and wants from those shows...well, let's just say I've been extremely attentive and involved and let it go at that.
The changes - attempted changes, in some instances - I've seen taking place affect nearly every aspect of their show, of their music as well, and they are sometimes quite obvious: the differing kinds of venues they are playing and how tickets are sold, both of those factors changing the makeup of their crowd, especially up front; not having an opening band and giving themselves that two-set flexibility, instrumentally and creatively; the increasingly more-adult tone of some of their banter, which is making it harder and harder for those who prefer to think of them as perpetually anatomically incorrect children to continue doing so; these are only a few on that long list of changes.
One fundamental change they have made in regard to their sound is to finally take it seriously enough to have an honest-to-goodness sound person - not a tour manager trying to wear two hats - working the sound board, this honest-to-goodness sound person being "Audio Guru Steve," as titled by Alan in his journal. Their sound has indeed been remarkably better recently, but even more significant to me is their newfound willingness to commit to (and pay for, or at least I hope so) doing their sound right; that willingness says openly that they believe they are doing music that deserves such efforts, music that is so good it needs to be heard the way it is being played. And for those who do listen to that newly excellent sound, there are quite a few changes to be heard in many of the songs, harmony parts subtly different here, instrumental arrangements changed slightly there, almost always played during these shows with a precision and a diligence that is itself a bit of a change from how things have sometimes taken place in the past. They are quite right when it comes to taking their sound seriously: This is music that deserves to be heard the way it is being played.
The lights I am less sure about. There has most certainly been change in this aspect of their shows, and that change is still taking place, but I am not sure what the ultimate goal of it all is. Whatever was going on before - all the way up through the shows on the first tour leg when their stages were still so dark they could barely be seen much of the time - was very bad, but whether it was bad because of equipment issues, personnel issues, or poor artistic-decision issues, I couldn't say. All I know is that it got much better during the second-leg shows, not perfect but progressively better, and that Jaye was back for those shows. They can be seen now, at their mics and at stage edge, and that is a very good change; it does vary from show to show still, but it is markedly better than it was before, and at some shows, such as the Warner Theatre show, the lighting came close to being excellent in terms of being an enhancement to the performance instead of an impediment.
There are still changes they are trying out with backlighting that I think are a largely a mistake because the backlights are blinding those audience members caught in the retina-dazzling glare. As a rule, backlighting works best when the stage is high enough to ensure that the glare of the lights goes over the heads of those in orchestra-level seats, which is not the case with most of these theatre stages, though what they're doing might work spectacularly well at high-stage venues such as hockey rinks or the Molson Amphitheatre. The "shadow in light" visual effect created by the backlights is indeed impressive, but I tend to be distracted away from that cool effect by the sudden motions of the people nearby who are cringing away from and covering their eyes in response to the blinding glare; either that, or I wind up not being able to see the cool effect at all because I too have become one of the blinded cringers/hiders, depending on where my own seat is.
It's simply not working very well, at least not for some unfortunately situated folks at every show. As one fan asked me after a show, a tone of worry in her voice, "Are they paying us back by trying to hurt our eyes because we took flash pictures of them and hurt their eyes?" Another fan had to resort to wearing sunglasses for parts of the show, either that or risk a migraine. Worst of all is watching small children holding their hands up in front of their eyes and yelping when the lights suddenly (and repeatedly) come up and blind them, sometimes for a considerable portion of a song - that's when even the coolest lighting effect starts to become hard for me to justify. With this one, I think I'll hold out hope that the changes will keep right on changing until they get to a better place.
ETA: Speaking of things changing until they get to a better place, it was remiss of me to forget to note that they have turned down the fog machine somewhat. Now, in times like these it is not quite so hard to see with any kind of clarity, and that too is a very good thing. And I should also add that the instrument changes went almost unnoticed, which is to say they came very close to being spot-on, all the more impressive when you consider how many different songs Brit was having to deal with in making those effortless-looking exchanges take place.
High up on the list of changes is what they have done with their set lists, changes there sometimes being obvious enough and at other times being so subtle that the deeper intent behind the change can only be surmised. They made some significant set list changes on this tour, not only in the unprecedented number of different songs they wound up playing (and how many of those were mid-tempo songs), but also in the placement of some of the songs they almost always do. The biggest and most noticeable change was moving Old Black Rum up and making it the closer of the first set instead of the song that closes out (and to some extent summarises) the entire GBS show. It's a move that has also shut up the frigging idiots who think the proper encore chant should be "Old Black Rum" instead of "Great Big Sea".
Putting Lukey in place as the main set closer (I'll get to the show-closers in a bit) is such a great call. Show after show, when ending with Lukey instead of Old Black Rum, the energy has been noticably more positive than it ever is when ending with OBR (think of it in terms of Venn diagrams: Not all people at GBS shows who like OBR are assholes, but most people at GBS shows who are assholes do like OBR), and Lukey has so much more of pertinence and value to say about Newfoundland culture than does OBR, especially for a song put into a "summing-up of the show experience" position. And playing OBR right before the break encourages people to go spend their money buying booze at the venue instead of at the pub after the show, which pleases the venues - a good call all around, though I do think Alan's current intro to OBR could use some revising. He deserves to have much better said about him than that, even if he is the one doing the saying.
Moving Lukey and OBR are the most obvious set list changes, along with re-positioning Ordinary Day to open the second set (another good call, based on crowd reaction) and breaking free of a few songs that could benefit from a rest (more on that in a bit too). But one set list change they made - and this one goes back to the beginning of The Hard & The Easy tour, though they have strengthened it with a second change this tour leg - is a bit more subtle, at least subtle in possible intent, even if less so in enactment. For the longest time, long before I ever heard of them and continuing on after I did, GBS began their shows with Donkey Riding, one of the most "call the crowd to participate" songs in their repertoire, setting a tone not only for the show, but for the audience as well. For a few years now, it's been clear that they've been working to move away from that show starting point, or perhaps at least working to move away from the notion that there can be only one GBS show starting point; they've tried a number of different songs as show-openers, including Ordinary Day and Process Man, a few times going with Billy Peddle (to great effect, I must say), and all through the tour in 2002 they opened with the radio/CD version of Sea Of No Cares. Still, on a many occasions, especially those times when they knew it was absolutely expected of them, they would once again revert to the Donkey Riding opener.
When they began TH&TE tour, what caught my attention from the very first show was their opener, a moodily backlit, hauntingly ethereal low-whistle solo from Bob, accompanied only by Murray on the bass fiddle, part of the Tishialuk Girls set from TH&TE CD. If the first few seconds of a show are reflective of a deliberate intention to set a tone for what is to follow after, if those first few seconds are meant to send any kind of message to the audience about what is being asked of them in response to what is yet to come, then this was a tone and a message completely different from any I had ever before seen or heard on a GBS stage. This was not a call for the audience's participation - this was a plea for that audience to hush for a moment, to be still, and to actually listen to the opening music. Then Alan would start in with that guitar part that is the intro to Billy Peddle, the one that so many people have such a hard time finding a clapping-along rhythm to, and that was another tone-setting and response-seeking message, one that demanded you pay close attention if you wanted to find that beat and participate. It was only then that they would break into the main part of Billy Peddle and the time for full and unfettered crowd participation had come.
I have thought from the first TH&TE show that this opening segment was a brilliant (but, alas, likely far too subtle for some, especially for those who come with expectations intact and immovable) attempt to encapsulate the entire upcoming show experience in those first few introductory moments: A time to listen quietly (even a time to sit your asses down when in a venue that has seats, seats that are there because GBS chose just such a venue for just such a purpose), a time to take part with attention and discernment, and a time to be energetically jubilant. This is a very long way from "Way hey and away we go". Of course, for many of the shows on TH&TE tour and even on the first leg of this tour, they muddled their own message somewhat by often seguing directly from this brilliant intro into the straightforward, expectation-satisfying simplicity of Donkey Riding; but not on this most recent tour leg. After Billy Peddle, and without so much as a breath of a pause, they went straight into Process Man, a powerful and beautifully arranged Process Man, and that took many people in the audience right back out of the "jump around" mode and got them listening closely to the music once again even as they sang along, putting them back into the discerning participation mode.
There were times on this tour when it felt very much like the band was working hard to encourage their audiences - maybe even attempting to train their audiences - to experience the shows in a different way, a way removed from what many in those audiences might have come in expecting from a GBS show. There were times when the effort worked beautifully, and there were times when it did not. But no matter what the crowd response at any given show, seeing these men who have their own history of resisting change as if it were a plague of Biblical proportions (there is good reason why so many who feel that same way are their fans), men who I know have also been hobbled and hindered by their own expectations - expectations of their fans and of their shows and of themselves - now embracing and endeavouring to effect such change was an experience that felt a very great deal like hope. Or, as Alan would write it, Hope.
And if there were those times when each of them slipped back into some of the old, expected behaviours - Bob getting indignantly appalled by what he has to have seen umpteen times before, Sean deciding to check out of a show when the idiot factor directly in front of him reaches a predictable peak, Alan allowing the needy/greedy for attention to hijack his stage as they make the show become all about whatever kind of notice or response they can get from him - even so, each time they eventually found their ways back to the place they belong, Bob recovering his stage smile, Sean reclaiming his pivotal role, Alan re-taking command of his stage. The harder change is, the more valiant and admirable the effort; the harder change is, the greater the hope required for undertaking that effort to make it happen, as well as the greater the hope that is inspired from seeing that effort taking place.
Before getting to the part of these shows that was the best and brightest source of such hope, I suppose I should include a kind of "master set list" for the second-leg shows:
Bob Whistle & Billy Peddle
Process Man
When I'm Up
Jack Hinks
Walk On The Moon
Paddy Murphy
Gideon Brown or Berry Pickin' Time
No Cares
Charlie Horse
Scolding Wife
Sweet Forget Me Not or Captain Wedderburn or Boston
Captain Kidd
Old Black Rum
Intermission
Ordinary Day
Hold On For Your Life (aka Here We Go Again/1-2-3-4)
Shines Right Through Me or River Driver
Rover
When I Am King
[Everything Shines - secondhand info from show not at]
Helmethead
Run, Runaway (with & without singalongs - when with, usually I Fought The Law, 500 Miles and Bohemian Rhapsody)
Turn or John Barbour
Consequence Free
Mari Mac
Lukey
First Encore
River Driver or Clearest Indication or Bad As I Am (and sometimes no first encore song)
Excursion
Fortune
Second Encore
Straight To Hell
Old Brown's Daughter or River Driver (not done every time)
As noted, information from missed shows is secondhand, and sometimes pretty much nonexistent; I never really heard much at all about the Norfolk show except for how "the usual songs were done" and how great a show it was because "Alan was everywhere across the stage all night long" - which I interpret as Norfolk being a show where Alan had to work his arse off trying to get a reticent crowd involved. Given the lack of firsthand information, this list definitely comes with an asterisk, but all in all I think it's reasonably accurate, though I'd be quite happy if anyone has corrections or additions to share.
So, that makes for 37 songs in 10 shows, an impressive tally - especially for GBS, given their own past history - if still not quite on a par with the prodigious and varied wealth of the first tour leg. Oh, how I missed Penelope's Lead Guitarist and the Sexy Banjo Player of Jakey's Gin, as well as missed revisiting sweet memories of Oz during How Did We Get From Saying I Love You. Not hearing Where I Belong one more time was the most regretted absence of all.
Then again, on this second tour leg GBS took one more small step/'giant leap toward breaking free from the expectation/demand that they do Donkey Riding and General Taylor at every frigging show until the end of time (and it was indeed an utter and unmitigated delight to hear Process Man in the "Donkey Riding spot," nearly as much so to see Turn and John Barbour taking the place of General Taylor), such a great gain that it comes close to balancing out any wistful feelings of loss over other absences. Here's hoping they take any future small steps/giant leaps that work to their benefit and are in accordance with their desires, and to hoping that they shatter any remaining restrictive expectations/demands from which they would rather be free on tour legs yet to come, no matter what songs might wind up absent, including any of my own personal favourites.
Now I have a double segue - "hope" and "personal favourites" - perfect positioning to talk about the new music done at these shows. Three of the new songs - Walk On The Moon, Hold On For Your Life (Here We Go Again/1-2-3-4...the title is still in flux), and Straight To Hell - were done at almost every show on this tour (one new song, Where I Belong, was done only once, in Kalamazoo), with Walk being a co-write between Alan and Gordie Sampson (same Nashville writing session back in September of 2003 that produced Lucky Me and Let It Go), Straight To Hell being solely Alan's song, Hold On For Your Life being just a bit ambiguous in stated authorship but certainly sounding like it is another "written by Alan Doyle" tune, and Where I Belong being an Alan Doyle/Russell Crowe co-write.
I've put videos of the first three songs up here in prior entries, with a few more versions still to come, so those who choose to download the videos (no, I will not make mp3s from the videos, my own version of Middle Ground) can hear (and see) the songs as they are now being played, though chances are they might sound somewhat different when finally recorded. Along those lines, so far the only tune that Alan has said for sure is going to be on the upcoming GBS CD is Walk On The Moon. The others might still be under negotiation/battle royale.
That these songs are all so good is excellent cause for hope when it comes to GBS's future, in particular GBS's creative future. That these songs are even being performed with GBS is yet another cause for hope. When TH&TE first came out, as much as I enjoyed the trad tunes (way more than I once thought I ever could), I was appalled to hear so many people going on about how traditional music was what GBS "should be doing" instead of "wasting time" with their original music. To say such things about three excellent songwriters, each outstanding in his own way, seemed incomprehensible to me - as much in the GBS fan world so often seems incomprehensible to me - and my own thought was that if it were true that GBS was going to make the business decision to take the easier path and start churning out trad-only tunes (especially given that TH&TE did wind up selling so well), then all the more reason to hope these excellent songwriters would find other creative outlets for their considerable talents.
But, as was the case with the River Dance/Tim Horton's/Great Big Hits Casino/Corporate Party Band, that's not what happened, or at least it's not what's happening right now. God only knows what the future might hold, but for today, not only has GBS moved toward a live-show format that highlights the wide spectrum and rich variety of their music - both original and traditional tunes - there is also brandly new original GBS music in these shows, and that brandly new GBS music is very good. Even better, that brandly new GBS music is significant, each song in its own way. I'll pass lightly over Where I Belong since I don't know where it stands in relation to GBS, saying only that I do think it could be the next generation's Sonny's Dream, the painfully honest (and stone-cold-sober) truth that lay beneath the posturing and posing of Rovin' Newfoundlander, Alan's co-write with Chris Andrews for Shanneyganock. It's a heart-breaking truth I have myself witnessed in tiny, dying towns all across Newfoundland, a truth that keeps right on breaking hearts each and every day in those towns as yet another going-away party is held for the most recent loved one who is packing up and heading West, one more person who can't stay where he or she belongs, one less person remaining to tend the garden reluctantly left behind. This is an important song, a song that deserves to be heard and needs to be heard; I hope it gets that chance, somewhere, anywhere, everywhere.
Hold On For Your Life is an autobiography of a band, and for all of its buoyant joy, it is grounded in the difficult particulars of that band's reality. One of the things I love the most about Alan's songwriting is how he can make the complex sound so simple to the casual listener, with a wealth of multiple meanings also there for the thoughtful listener who seeks out such riches. Alan's writing allows the expectations of the listener to determine how much or how little they get from his songs, always, I think, with the abiding hope that those riches will indeed be discovered for the treasures that they are but also with the acceptance that there will always be those who simply do not get it, those who come to the song not expecting that there is anything of deeper significance there for the getting.
For those who are capable of recognising treasure when they encounter it, something as blessedly simple as the line, "Hold on for your life" with its double meaning of holding tight during a rough ride (I still think their bus accident was the starting point for this song) and also of holding on with a stubbornly tight grip over the course of your lifetime to what is most dear to you, is a writer's delight, and a discerning listener's delight as well. Add in a catchy melody line, a great singalong hook with the 1-2-3-4 's, and a clever arrangement that includes some skillful drum work and you've got yet another excellent argument for getting those who think they know the limits and boundaries of what GBS "should do" to shut the fuck up.
Walk On The Moon has held a special place in my heart for more than three years, ever since the first time I heard Alan sing it as a solo encore on a rainy night in New Orleans in the fall of 2003. Things had been rough up to that point, difficult shows and painful misunderstandings and hard words in abundance, all of it bad enough to cause me to begin to wonder who Alan Doyle really was. And then he stood there on that tiny stage at the HOB Parish at the close of the show, just a man with his guitar and his song; with that song, the man put an end to any and all doubt about who he is. I have loved the song ever since, and each of the few times I have heard him sing Walk On The Moon over the past few years - he has on occasion sung it at various Songwriters' Circles - has caused me to love it even more.
Because Walk On The Moon has always seemed like such a personal statement direct from the heart and soul of the songwriter, I and others who have heard it and react to it the same way have hoped for a long time that it would be the centerpiece of Alan's semi-mythical solo CD, so much so that my first reaction to hearing it as a GBS song destined to wind up on the upcoming GBS CD was decidedly less than favourable, a reaction shared by others. "Why would Alan hand that song over to GBS?" one friend asked me, a note of dismay in his voice. "It's Alan's song; it's a song about who he is. It's not about who GBS is; no way will GBS ever make any giant leaps or walk on any moons." And I had to agree, at least at first.
But as the shows slipped by and as I listened to and watched Walk On The Moon performed each night - another beautiful arrangement with Bob's fiddle solo and Kris's drum part, Murray's bass and Sean's harmonies supporting Alan's heartfelt singing and playing - my own hard heart began to soften. I still see this as Alan's song, his song as performed by GBS, but I also know Alan is the one who made the choice to alow this song of his to become a GBS song; if that choice was a part of his own giant leap and if it in any way leads to his own walks upon the moon, then all I can do is trust his judgement about this being a song more right for GBS than it would be for himself on his own. And after all I've seen happen over these most recent shows, I will confess to finding it a bit less unlikely that GBS might be capable of making such leaps and taking such walks.
In its own way, Straight To Hell is an even more significant song than Hold On For Your Life or Walk On The Moon, in spite of all my admiration for the former and abiding love of the latter. Considering the defiant irreverence and darkly brutal subtext of Straight To Hell, as well as its overt and impudent sexuality, I don't for one minute believe it would have been accepted as a GBS song, or played on a GBS stage, a few years ago. That it is being played, that it is being accepted with such warmth and enthusiasm by so many in the GBS audiences (not all, of course...I have heard the bitching and whining about it not being "upbeat and happy enough" to be a GBS song, that ever-negative insistence that someone else be ever-positive), is itself one of the clearest indications that genuine changes are taking place before our eyes and our ears.
And what glorious changes they are: If ever you wanted a perfect example of a classically "Newfoundland Song" - a song that takes the darkest of subject matter and turns it into cause for joyful singing and dancing, all while never pretending for a second that the darkness is anything other than what it is - this song would be that perfect example, with an ass-kicking electric guitar/fiddle solo combo to underscore the point and some appropriately primal drum riffs thrown in for added emphasis. Straight To Hell also resonates with a larger and more complex truth, personally for the songwriter and by extension for all who are so driven by and so committed to their art that they are willing to "sell their souls" in the attempt to gain all that they desire from their creative endeavours. To write a song that honestly faces the steep cost of this desire, a song that also gleefully celebrates all those delightful things that this steep cost purchases, makes for one of the most artistically courageous moments I've ever encountered.
Along with "anything goes," another phrase I have seldom if ever used before in regard to Great Big Sea is "artistically courageous". The times, they are definitely a-changin'. That same artistic courage reached its zenith over and over at these shows at the moment of transition from the raucous, electrified rebellion of Straight To Hell to the pure, innocent simplicity of Old Brown's Daughter. To be able to make that transition, to have that transition accepted by audience after audience as the members of those audiences willingly hush their screaming voices and listen with rapt stillness to five umamplified voices singing sweetly from stage edge a wistful traditional tune of unrequited love, to have that wide a spectrum of music and mode and mood be something that comes naturally to your band and your stages, is perhaps the best definition of "anything goes" to be found at most any show. As a summing-up moment for those shows, as well as for this band, it is a moment which is exquisitely perfect in its poignancy and its power because it is a moment which is so fundamentally true - true about the men, true about their music, and true about the place from which both those men and their music come.
Will it continue, growth and change and courage unabated, with artistic truth travelling alongside? Only time will tell. For today, I think I will simply feel thankful that it took place in the here and now, be proud of those who made it happen, and enjoy the memory of good music, both old and new songs, as well as hold onto the realisation that the boundaries of what is possible for this band are much wider and far more expansive than I had ever dared to hope they might be. If there is one thing I have learned during the 2007 GBS Spring Tour, it is that there is justifiable cause for daring to hope.
After all, if anything goes, what point putting boundaries on hope?
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Alright, that's more than enough Big Picture for one night. Next up, I'll try to say something about each of the shows, not in "documentary detail," mind you, just pertinent points here and there, as well as some more of those most-treasured moments. And I really will work on pictures and videos and comments and all that too. At least I'll try to. As for results, I think I'll just quote Alan again: "Hmm. We'll see."
