carynb | Great Big Sea, Live at Massey Hall

To sum up: Another great concert by these guys. High energy, lots of fun.

Mike & I met up with

mycrazyhair and C & J, a couple of non-lj friends at the Hall, and headed inside just before the opening act. Said opening act was an amazing 17 year old by the name of Liam Titcomb - if you get a chance to see him, check him out. He's got an great voice, his songs were cool, and he had a really good stage presence. His stuff is kinda folk-rock. I bought the album, so I'll have to see if the studio version hold up as well as the live ones did.

He was immediately followed by Jimmy Rankin, who didn't impress me. He was just...ordinary.

Then , Great Big Sea took the stage. And they took it well, actually. I love how they transfer their high energy out to any crowd they're playing for, in any venue. Anyway, some favorite moments:

Apparently, everyone is as big a fan of Helmethead as I am. Alan looked a little taken aback by the first enthusiastic "Fare Ye Well" response he got when he was coaching the audience on their part of the song. *g*
Sean had a little cousin in the audience (whom he's apparently never met before). She looked about 5 or 6, and she was sitting in the front row, dancing next to the stage for most of the show. When Sean mentioned that he had cousins in the audience, the little girl jumped up and down excitedly, and Sean said "Oh, you're Sasha?" and went over to shake her hand. It was cute. :-)
It's kinda startling to look around at a crowd of staid Torontonians, ages about 8 to about 60, and realize this bunch of guys has got 3000 of them on their feet dancing and singing to traditional Newfoundland folk tunes (Lukey's Boat, in particular). Folk tunes. The stuff is made for dancing, sure, but that just so not a Torontonian thing to do. It's fun.
They did a very stripped down version of Sea of no Cares, adding instruments in slowly, one at a time. It was a really nice version, done as a ballad rather than as a pop song. I wish I had a recording of it.
They ended the last encore with Rant and Roar, and sang it the first time a capella and unmiked, motioning the crowd to keep quiet. I think they wanted to check out the acoustics. *g* After one rendition, they had the whole crowd join them, still without their mikes on, and that was kinda cool. One big choir.

They actually changed up the arrangements of the songs a lot. Slowed stuff down, sped it up, changed the words, changed the melodies. I think they must be getting near the end of the tour, and getting tired of the stuff they're doing. That probably the easiest way to keep it fresh, right?

Anyway, it was a great concert, and lots of fun.