I thought I'd missed him at Folk on the Rocks. It was a wildish weekend, with so many hugs and hellos that the music was to me, for the first time ever at that funnest of festivals, relegated to background noise. Also, me and Felch were commuting in and out of town several times a day -- in various states of sobriety (no driving though, folks!) -- for a fastball tournament, carelessly scheduled over the same weekend.
I remember breifly bumping into him at the Sunday after-party. I remember Drewsif Islam and Otis Dawgwood swooning over his performances. I remember feeling choked that I missed him.
So when I heard Old Man Luedecke was coming to Montreal, I made sure to get my ass a seat. And it proved a wise idea.
A few quick notes about the show:
-I can honestly say I've never seen so many horseshoe-shaped, bald patterned heads at a concert as I did last night. We sat behind the sound booth and it seriously looked like there were 20 Larry Davids sprinkled in amongst the audience. I kind of figured there wouldn`t be a copious amount of groupie coitus following a banjo tour, and last night confirmed that.
-Do you want to know how Habs-obsessed this city is? Like I said, we sat behind the sound booth, and while tinkering with dials and switches, the sound guy would look over at his laptop, seated on a stool beside him, every 30 or so seconds, as the score of the Habs-Sens game was constantly updating on nhl.com. When the Sens scored, he'd just stare at the laptop like it had betrayed him. At least two or three times during each period, another staff member would come by and look at the screen and, with the Habs trailing, the two guys would look at each other and just shake their heads.
-The sound in Petit Campus was as good as a friend had said it would be. The opener sounded like I was hearing him through over-the-ear headphones. It was a little surreal and the quality made the performance that much more intimate. The Petit Campus is a small venue, located just below a popular student dance club. As the night progressed, and the club filled up with youngsters, the bass started to bleed into the room unfortunately, until literally the metal ceiling panels above us started shaking. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM. All this during a banjo performance. Give the Old Man credit, though. He soldiered on.
-I had to laugh when we left the show. As I said earlier, the venue sits below a student club. Outside, there was a long line-up of very done-up guys and girls waiting to get in. I wondered what they must have thought when they saw the scores of white-haired people gingerly descend the stairs to exit.
As for the show, everything everyone had told me about Old Man Luedecke proved spot on. In true folk tradition, the guy is 100 per cent storyteller. I loved just sitting there, cracking up and then nodding in agreement with most of the words and phrases he sang. So often, you go to a show and there is so much going on that you lose focus on the actual song. Not last night. Just strong songs abut universal themes like love lost and finding purpose, but not in a romantic, pretentious way. I really enjoy how he writes these traditional folk songs, but dots them with all these observations about the conveniences/distractions of modern life, with cell phone and email references mixed in. I mean, one song is called `At the Airport` and he makes the observation that there are kisses there that you cannot believe. It`s perfect and so true.
So yeah, it was fantastic stuff and then we went down to a party that some girls me and the Sachmo had met the night before were having. We spent the evening prior at Igloofest, where we channelled our inner guidos and fist-pumped all night at an outdoor electronic music fest. I invented a new dance move, called the squid hand. I think a T-shirt is on the way.
This city has got the right idea. There is something to do every night.
At the start of the week, I`d been feeling kind of down. I mean, sometimes, not being able to communicate easily and adequately in French can give you a sort of inferiority complex. I was getting no feedback on jobs and I was feeling a little sad because my buddy Pabs moved back home and I felt a bit like everyone was busy with their lives and I was waiting for something to happen. (Luedecke had a great line about that. To paraphrase, `What is crazy? It`s behaving the same way and expecting different results.` Yep, the guy is sage-like.)
It had gotten to the point where I actually had a legitimate work day during a dream. Nothing exciting had happened. I just got up from bed, went to work and spent a couple hours putting together a story. When I told my roommate about this, he said my days were the opposite of a normal person's: where they go to work during the day and dream about doing nothing at night, I was doing nothing during my waking life, but working while asleep.
But then I lightened up a bit, because my roommate came back from Lebanon and she`s a light and I went and played some hockey with my other roommate and some neighbours and it was a total release and then an old friend called out of the blue, saying she`d moved to town and we had a beer and a smoke Thursday and then Friday we danced up a storm and I met a really cool crew, which is coming over for a little shindig at my place next week, and then another old friend called and he said he could probably find me a job, and then to top it off, Old Man Luedecke made all my insecurities and worries feel like they were normal and, in the big scheme of things, not worth stressing over.
I realized I had changed it up a bit and the results were different, and so the man's words hold weight.
So I`m spreading the word of Luedecke. Go see him if he comes through your town.
And yeah, it was a good week.
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