I saw Kristin Hersh and Brendan Perry in Toronto Sunday evening. What a fine concert! Even though her set was shorter because she was opening for Perry, Kristin managed to pack in a lot of music. The packed venue received exceptional value for the ticket price tonight, that's for sure!
I met up with Kade, another Throwing Muses feedback message board regular. She had traveled from Rochester, NY with a friend (into DCD/Perry) just to attend the show. Kade made an interesting observation that of all the songs in Kristin's set tonight, only ONE was from "Sky Motel", that being "Echo".
One of Kristin's many gifts is the ability to draw her audience in with candid in-between song banter. You can only imagine what happened one day in Kristin's kitchen while making muffins that led one of her boys to shout "Hawaii is in my ass!".
She went on to give a crash course in the architecture of an Appalachian folk song (man wants to get married, woman doesn't, man kills woman... or man wants to get married, woman doesn't, woman kills herself). These were the songs her father sang to her at her bedside as a child and she reflects that this is probably why she writes songs the way she does.
Kade also sported a deluxe Throwing Music shirt which was offered on the TM site recently. The logo on the back looked great and when you ordered you got a choice of what "name" you wanted stitched on the front and she picked Bea (an early Muses song). A lot of people call her Bea now but hey, it doesn't matter since it's such a great looking shirt, heh.
A big hello to Billy O, who probly was too busy setting up the stage for Kristin to recall me from our meeting back in August.
All in all, it was a fine evening. Two of 4AD's longest residing artists together in one concert AND getting to meet Kade and her friend Matthew. We ended up having drinks and a chat after the show. I just hope my directions for getting back on the freeway were reasonably usable, hehe...
Earlier in the day I happened to be in the area of the venue and managed to "sneak" in and catch a bit of Brendan's sound check. That was pretty nice but the real special highlight was after saying good-byes to Kade and her friend that I drove past the venue and decided to stop by the tour bus.
I walked up to the back entrance of the venue and shortly thereafter Brendan walked out with some people from 4AD. Brendan was extremely kind to sign my "Eye Of The Hunter" CD and have a quick chat. He is a soft-spoken man but when he sings, he effortlessly proves again just how amazing and powerful a vocalist he is.
If you get a chance to see Kristin and Brendan on tour, definitely do so. It is a stunning show! They hit Detroit on Tuesday followed by Chicago on the 10th then a few days off before starting the west coast leg of the tour in Seatlle on November 14th.
JEFF KEIBEL TORONTO, ONTARIO CANADA