Great Big Sea / June 27th, 2008 / Doolin's Irish Pub / Vancouver, Canada
Like the fierce Norwesters that Great Big Sea so often sings about, and that blow in off the coast of Canada’s eastern most province Newfoundland, the rock band from a province affectionately nicknamed ‘the rock,’ (how fitting is that?) blew into Vancouver on June 27th, and put on a spectacular concert, consisting of twenty songs.
The band set a furious pace to this concert, which matched the brisk tour that they were on to promote their new album Fortune’s Favour, recorded under the Warner Music Canada label. Two nights earlier in the nation’s capital of Ottawa, they received rave reviews from the Ottawa Citizen. Even though the band regularly sells out large venues throughout United States and Canada, they chose on this tour, to play smaller venues such as Doolin’s Irish Pub in downtown Vancouver. To hype the concerts even further, tickets were only available to contest winners. The marketing strategy appeared to work, and it is reported that fans of Great Big Sea started lining up as early as five-thirty in the afternoon, even though the band was not scheduled to perform their first song until eight o’clock.
Guitarist Sean McCann, who also played a Celtic drum known as the bodhran, shared the role of lead vocalist with Alan Doyle (guitarist), depending on the song. They are a contrast in styles with Doyle providing the sandpaper and grit for songs such as “Straight To Hell,” and pub songs like “Company Of Fools,” which Doyle penned with actor/rocker Russell Crowe. Both songs appear on the band’s new CD Fortune’s Favour. It was McCann who lent his smooth vocals to “England,” a song that wonders what it must have been like for those first European explorers who ventured to North America, and left their loved ones behind. Bob Hallett provided quality backup vocals.
Looking around Doolin’s Irish Pub, every age group was represented. There were university age people, such as the young woman who told me this was the fifth Great Big Sea concert that she had attended, and there was the mid thirties couple beside me, whose special song was “Sea Of No Cares.” With tears streaming down her cheeks, she confided in me, that she and her partner had met at a Great Big Sea concert a few years earlier, shortly after “Sea Of No Cares,” was released. There were people in their forties, fifties and sixties and even older, some standing on benches, just to catch a glimpse of their heroes from the east coast. Throughout the evening, the crowd recognized the familiar choruses for songs such as “The Night Pat Murphy Died,” and lustily, in loud voices, sang the words back to the band. At one point, Doyle thrust his microphone towards the crowd so they could be heard. I do not think however, there was really any danger of that being an issue. Think of an NBA or NHL playoff game, and the home team is winning, the crowd is cheering, and you will get a bit of an idea just how loud these fans were on this memorable evening. This was the first concert that I remember attending, where the cheers, singing and clapping of the fans, approached the decibel level of the music being played.
In an interview earlier in the day, with Riveting Riffs Magazine, which will soon be appearing, Hallett and Doyle, confessed that when they write their music, it comes from their hearts and the traditional music of their home, Newfoundland, but they seldom write songs, intending them to have profound meanings. It is an interesting thing about music, how sometimes what an artist intends, and how it affects the people who listen to it, can be quite different. It seemed that as each new tune rolled off the lips of McCann, Doyle and Hallett, that these fans conjured up their own special memories.
As the sweat beaded on the faces of Doyle, Hallett, McCann, bassist Murray Foster, and drummer Kris MacFarlane, they appeared to be reenergized by their fans response to their music. Their yeoman effort while performing, reflects the salt stained lyrics, and sometimes grubby melodies that the fisherman, postal worker, secretary, engineer and longshoreman and identify with.
Great Big Sea did a good job of mixing the old with the new, and even took some requests from the crowd. There was, “Old Brown’s Daughter,” a ballad about a boy with a huge crush on a shopkeeper’s daughter. They performed the riveting “Helmethead,” “Concerning Charlie Horse,” and new tunes such as, “Rocks Of Merasheen,” and “Love Me Tonight.” The later tune, and the retooled “Walk On The Moon,” both appear on Fortune’s Favour, and if the commercial radio big wigs, and in Canada the CRTC, can stop admiring their egos long enough, to realize that the majority of the public does not really care if they have stations that serve up songs that fit into a nice little genre packages, then “Walk On The Moon,” “Love Me Tonight,” and a third song from the new CD, “Dream To Live,” should be stellar hits.
Great Big Sea, likes to have fun, and go out and put on a good show. Their fans obviously like to have fun too, and they put on a good show as well. Combine those elements, and it makes for a great concert, which is exactly what the patrons of Doolin’s Irish Pub in Vancouver got on June 27th.
Reviewed by Joe Montague
All photos by Joe Montague ©
Reviewed June 27th, 2008
Riveting Riffs wishes to thank the management of The Warner Music Group and Doolin's Irish Pub, for making it possible for Riveting Riffs to review this concert
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