Basia Bulat
With excited energy Basia burst onto the large stage, clad all in white atop her shiny silver clogs and nearly tossed herself onto that very stage in her shimmying and twirling. Fortunately disaster was averted and the night started with a plucky uke tune filled in by her six piece backing band in black. This group included her brother Bobby on drums, Ben Whiteley on bass and guitar, Ian Koiter - another London based musician and Shad collaborator - a second stand up drummer, plus two lovely females filling in the backing vocal touches plus the odd extra instrument. Soon Basia picked up her signature instrument and played that autoharp like she were a rockstar with an electric guitar. Speaking of which, later she swapped her acoustic for an electric and joked about this being her 'goes electric' moment. Though she wasn't joking all night she was obviously giddy just to be there, respecting the space in a number of ways. For one she excused the band for a few solo numbers to fill the air with her hauntingly strong yet soft voice and even referenced Neil Young by given name before launching an unheard song akin to his famous Live at Massey Hall debuts. Everyone returned and the exuberant feeling continued with the leading lady setting aside her guitar to slip into the crowd and take a front row seat, all the while singing into her effect mic, only to make it back in time for the next chords. The set closed on a high note and the musicians lined the stage for a deserved bow as the crowd spritely hopped to their feet. She proved me wrong by returning with just the gals to sing into a single mic together before she left the mic behind altogether and played sans amplification at the stage edge into a dead silent crowd. She was emitting magic into that air. Earlier in the set she warned that we were going to have a hard time getting her to leave the stage and she did seem hesitant to depart, loitering to collect her bouquet and sop up the outpouring of love that we bestowed. Saving her best for the big stage shone clear.
Destroyer
What would a Destroyer show be like? Even more curious, what would a solo Destroyer set consist of? It was about all that can be done with a man on a big stage with an acoustic guitar. His voice was controlled and bold, his picking quick and polished, the evidence of a man who has been plying his trade for a long time. A relative newcomer to his work I recognized a number of songs from Rubies and Kaput but they obviously were stripped down versions, especially compared to the involved instrumentation of the latter. At the completion of each song he would raise his guitar and flip that mop of curly hair down in front of him in a bow to the delight of his fans, while fairweather observers and newcomers seemed to yearn for more, with more than the odd person leaving partway through to grab a beer. To me the attempted standing ovation seemed completely unnecessary but I've been losing the over-ovation fight in Toronto for years and in a venue such as Massey there's no point in even trying.
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