KJames199
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|  #1 Posted on 29.4.16 1933.43
Reposted on: 29.4.23 1935.32 | This was a long-awaited gig for me. Jason Collett is one of those people who's come to Regina seemingly a dozen times since I've been here, but I've always found a way to miss out. Mark, in particular, is a fan and has tried to get me to go on multiple occasions - so, of course, I finally buy tickets and this time Mark's out of town. Oh well, I hope he had fun seeing Sloan in Vancouver and eating all the ducks.
Having said that - the part about the long-awaited show, not the part about Mark eating ducks - for all I've heard about Collett and as much as his singer-songwritery vibe should be right up my alley, I'd heard very little of his music. A handful of singles from CBC Radio 3, that's about it, so I was looking forward to hearing more. You know, as if there wasn't a vast collection of his recorded output at my fingertips.
We got to the Exchange about 15 minutes before the opener, Kalle Matteson, was to begin. Finding parking was not exactly difficult. I wasn't surprised - given the number of ticket giveaway contests I saw, and the number of "hey, we got this show coming up, don't forget" tweets, it seemed like tickets were moving a little slowly. Indeed, we had no trouble finding a place to sit once we arrived. It filled in reasonably well as the night progressed but wasn't close to selling out, I don't think.
This wasn't put on by the folk festival people but it still started right on time. Our opener was Kalle Mattson; nobody seemed to know who he was, to the point that when he said his name, he paused for applause that was awfully late in arriving. His sense of humour about this situation won me over. "Tonight I'm going to play some old songs, play some new songs... which I am certain is completely irrelevant to all of you." Later on, he said he was originally from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and scoffed at the one person who WOOed that.
This was the first night of the Mattson/Collett tour pairing and, I gather, the first show in a while for both musicians. Mattson played a sad song called Astronaut, which he wrote for his grandmother. In introducing the song, he said that this was its world premiere. After he finished, when someone in the crowd said they needed a Kleenex, Mattson offered to sell the fan a t-shirt. "You can do whatever you want with it."
Going into this show, I knew very little about Mattson. I listened to a few of his songs on Apple Music before the show, including a cover of Hotline Bling he didn't play at our show. Musically, he reminded me a bit of Andy Shauf - quiet guy with a guitar - only Matteson's songs are a little sadder and he's got a drier sense of humour when chatting between songs. He said "if you do know anything about me, you know I sing a lot about death" and I suppose that backs up both points. Anyway, this dude was good! Recommended.
After a brief intermission during which time we probably played iPhone Yahtzee and fed our iPhone cats, Jason Collett and his backing band Zeus were up. The sound wasn't the best - the vocals seemed kinda muddy. I didn't notice that during Mattson's set, and they sounded better later on when Collett did a song or two by himself, so I'm not sure what the issue was. Whatever it was, it was tied to the vocals - Zeus sounded real good.
I recognized a few of the first songs - I Wanna Rob a Bank and I'll Bring the Sun. We had also listened to his newest album, Song & Dance Man, and of course he played lots from it, including the title track, Forever Young is Getting Old, Singing American, and Black Oak Savannah. There was also a cover of She's Gone by Hall & Oates, and like Mattson, Collett said that one of the new songs was being played in public for the first time ever. It maybe took them three tries to start it off right, but these things happen.
If you want a more complete setlist with a bunch of pictures from the show, my former neighbours were at the show and one of them posted a bunch of pictures to the local weekly paper's website.
As for the show... I don't know. Maybe I needed Mark to be there so I could get a dose of second-hand enthusiasm. I think at one point Collett referred to the crowd being "respectful," which I'm pretty sure means "make some noise, you dopes." Well, there was this one guy who yelled "YES!" at the opening notes of a bunch of Collett's songs, but it soon became apparent that he was more into yelling YES than he was into Collett himself. Good to have hobbies.
But yeah, I enjoyed the show, but didn't love it. The sound issues didn't help any, but I don't think that was it. It just wasn't my thing. Not sure why it shouldn't be - I like lots of musicians who would be in the same Canadian indie singer-songwriter category as Collett. And while this show was fine, it just didn't really grab me. So it goes. | Promote this thread! |             | | ALL ORIGINAL POSTS IN THIS THREAD ARE NOW AVAILABLE |
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