|
|
This is only a preview of the paper
Click here to register and get the full text.
Existing members click here to login
|
|
|
Home for the Holidays: A Great Big Sea Christmas
“That’s electric…. ...
“Last year was the first year since 1994 that we didn’t have a Great Big Christmas party at the Delta, and I have to say…that sucked. ... Seeing them for the very first time at home – also my first time being in the midst of what’s inarguably a distinct culture and what feels much as if it should be a distinct country - called even more for a willingness to watch and listen and learn and to be open to a delight in the unexpected. The Great Big Christmas Show in the ballroom at the Delta was all of the things I had expected: they gave their all, they were wonderful, I was so very glad I was able to be there, but the best parts of it all were the unexpected ones. ... Cats where the time spent (sometimes considerable chunks of time) with fellow show-goers played a big role in that enjoyment and almost always taught me something new about the ways in which GBS is perceived by their fans. ...
When they finally got it all buttoned down and wrapped up like a shiny new Christmas package they’d be giving us once the show started, I watched them walk out of the hotel one by one and it suddenly occurred to me that they were most likely going home in-between sound check and the show. As simple and obvious as that might sound, after having seem them walk out of so many other sound checks and head off to the hotel room or the tour bus, the thought that this time they had the chance to go home and spend a bit of time with their loved ones before taking the stage was a very happy thought, brought into even sharper and sweeter focus when I then saw the not-quite-home Murray and Kris wandering around the hotel lobby. ... Perhaps this evening was going to be yet another way of taking care of holiday family matters and they would be able to be as much at home in the Delta with an extended family during the show as they could be with immediate family before the show. ... Then there were Kim and John, she a happy transplant from North Bay delighted to be in Newfoundland and John finally finding his way back home again after some twenty years away and now vowing never to leave again; they had both loved the music for years, but this would be their first time seeing the ones who played that music live, up close and personal. There are few things better than standing next to those seeing them for the very first time, except perhaps when those doing that first seeing are doing it in the home they share with the ones who make the music they have loved for so long – it’s like watching a reunion of long-lost family members. ... No pressure, no rush, only a great deal of warmth and happiness and holiday good cheer for the most part. ... This night felt different from any other I’d experienced – it felt warm and friendly and proud and happy…it felt like home, even to someone very far from home. I couldn’t wait to see how they would play to this kind of crowd and what it would be like to see what Alan would later declare, with raised and clenched fist at the beginning of Goin’ Up, to be “Great Big Sea, home for the holidays. ... They came out to enthusiastic applause and with a welcome from Fergus “to all Newfoundlanders, especially those home for the holidays – I wish you could all stay,” they launched into Rant and Roar, a version different from and yet the same from the GBS version, blessed with a few more verses but brimming over with all of the same pride – and instantly joined in with by every one of those 1200/1400 voices. ... The joy of being home versus the longing for that joy – how appropriate their songs would take root most deeply and bloom most brilliantly in these two audiences. ...
Next up for Fergus and Dermot was Ewan McCall’s Dirty Old Town, dedicated by Fergus to anyone there from the UK (of course some answered the call – I think that night there may have been people who had come home from the far corners of the earth to which they have been forced to scatter). ...
The sounds of happy singing reverberated even more throughout the Delta ballroom with the acoustic singalong of what was called a prairie shanty, The Big Bow Wow (remember, I’m hearing nearly every one of these songs for the first time, even more fun for me to hear the entire crowd pick up the song by the second syllable of the first word). And then, after a billowing gust of mist spewed forth from the hyperactive fog machine (prompting Fergus to quip that since he was from Torbay, he felt quite at home in the resultant obscuring fog), it was a progression to Tie Me Down, West Country Lady, and their closer of Warlike Lads Of Russia, with Fergus once again stroking, caressing, and coaxing that bodhran to be all that it could possibly be. ... Lo and behold, as he’s running mic checks with the instruments, Danny walks out with a most attractive black electric guitar in his hands, leaving me thinking in terms of the possibilities of receiving belated but much-appreciated Christmas gift. ... Usually, when the opening act leaves the stage at a Canadian show, the Big Squeeze begins, with everyone moving closer to the stage and the jockeying for position improvement beginning in earnest. ...
I’ll do the entire set list first (with the return of one or two much-missed-by-me songs), then go back to the individual songs:
Donkey Riding
When I’m Up
Sea Of No Cares
Going Up
Clearest Indication
Paddy Murphy
When I’m King
Penelope
Beat the Drum
General Taylor
I’m A Rover
Run, Runaway
Everything Shines
Scolding Wife
Turn
Lukey
Consequence Free
Mari Mac
Ordinary Day
Encore 1
Boston and St. ... Bob, decked out in a lovely blue that supplanted his non-holiday-coordinating customary black, his hair curling around his forehead and his face almost but not quite clean-shaven (still a single strip of chin whiskers perched defiantly down the center of his chin), was smiling a little-boy smile of giddy delight that would last the entirety of the show; if that is Bob’s Home Smile, it alone would have been worth the 3,000-plus mile trip to see. ... Wearing a pullover shirt in a soft gray colour that could rightly be called Made For Murray Gray, the bassist for Great Big Sea sounded even better than he looked, hitting those tingle-inciting low notes with rumbling precision and smiling with a sweetly smooth self-confidence. ... It was at the beginning of Going Up that, along with his comment about it sucking that there was no Great Big Christmas party at the Delta the previous year, it was going to be different this year, that this year was a time for Christmas kisses to be scattered all around, and that they had “decorated the town with mistletoe – feel free to make love and to show the people from away how a proper kitchen party should be done.” Perhaps the quintessential moment was that raised fist of his at the song’s beginning and the joyously determined proclamation of “Great Big Sea: Home For The Holidays”; it certainly drew the single loudest roar from that home-for-the-holidays crowd. Many of them might have to be leaving soon after the holidays, either that or have to say goodbye to a departing loved one, and God knows there is always a plane ticket with each member of GBS’s name on it waiting to carry them far away from home, but for this night, it was time to celebrate what so many others take for granted: all being able to be together at home again, however briefly.
Approximate Word count = 6545
Approximate Pages = 26.2
(250 words per page double spaced)
|
|
|
|
|
|