I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: JENN GRANT-Live at Massey Hall (June 23, 2017).

I don’t know Jenn Grant, although her music sounds somewhat familiar.  She’s from PEI originally but her family moved to Nova Scotia when she was ten.  She recently moved back to Nova Scotia with her husband, where they live by the ocean and the woods.

For this show, she is joined by Daniel Ledwell, Michael Belyea and Tavo Dies de Bonilla.  On a couple of songs, she has Julie Fader and Kim Harris for backing vocals (this is Fader’s second appearance in the series).

Years ago shed opened for BNL at Massey Hall, but she wasn’t present. This time she’s very aware of things like the large but intimate feeling of the place.  During soundcheck she felt she never sounded better

“Paradise” is a slow keyboard song with electronic drums.  It’s moody in a Twin Peaks kind of way.  Although it picks up for the chorus.  The drum sounds in the middle of the song sound like when my phone speaker is over powered, it’s unsettling.

“I am a River” is interrupted by her speaking about her new record.  It’s interesting that her music is quite electronic since she is so inspired by nature.  Although this song does have more organic elements like piano and such.

She introduces “The Fighter” by saying “This is a song from an album that we made once.”  She plays electric guitar and that creates more drama and texture in the song.  This has a great overall sound.

“I’ve Got Your Fire” starts with piano.  This song sounds familiar–I wonder if I know it or if it just sounds like a Jane Siberry song.  It’s very pretty.

“No One’s Gonna Love You (Quite Like I Do)” is mellow song, also quite pretty.  “Galaxies” is a bit higher energy and she says it’s “fun to perform for an audience.”  It’s got a cool retro keyboard sound.  Dreamer ends he show quietly with delightful backing vocals.  I like the way the song slowly builds.

[READ: January 25, 2018] “Fourteen Feet of Water in My House”

This story sets everything up right from the get go:

My hometown flooded.  Prediction, as usual, failed us.

And so, when the narrator wakes up with a river in his house, he is quite pleased to see that his boat, kept in the backyard, was banging on his second storey window.  He is barely awake but he jumps into the boat headfirst.

“This is real… Dad’s house is ruined…. Boat seems fine though…. People probably stranded … ”

The rest of the story is his adventure saving people.

He zipped around rescuing friends and neighbors first, but I loved the details of the surreal nature of his experience: “Familiar streets seemed the canals of Venice.”

Mostly he was happy to keep busy.  Since his wife Jean died he hasn’t had much to do; this felt like something to do and more.

We also learn a bit about him and his father–this is his dad’s house after all,

In 1950 he overpaid for our stone manse, guaranteeing my boyhood social standing. On a street known for its brain surgeons and college presidents, my dad was manager of Milady’s FootFair. To make the fierce down payment on our 1939 colonial, he would gladly kneel half a century before Riverside’s worst female feet.

He rescued some boys from the projects who manged to swim all the way there.  And then he went out to his first ever crush (whose husband was cheating on her).  He thinks back to the time when he wanted to ask her out but she pushed him towards her friend Jean instead

Jean here is smarter than I and looks-wise grows on people. She has scads more money than I’ll get (even when Dad finally goes). And trust me, she loves you WAY more. Choose Jean.

The story ends six years later, this was all a reflection back on that trying time, a time that ruined him and yet somehow liberated him.