KJames199
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|  #1 Posted on 17.9.16 1916.57
Reposted on: 17.9.23 1916.58 | Ah hell crap dammit I have three of these things to do. I want to do other things but I also don't want to have FOUR of these particular things, so here we go.
I just looked up my last Greg MacPherson review and it was from four years ago and I can't even fathom that. I'm fine with being 40, I can handle any of the "Want to feel old? _____ came out _____ years ago" posts (though the idea that Snakes on a Plane has been around for a decade is a bit disconcerting), but four years since that concert? Really? I do not understand how this is possible.
I remember that show well. It was an intimate setting (the first show I saw at the Artful Dodger) and a fantastic performance, one that made me into much more of a fan than I'd been going in. I know he's come back through town a few times since then, but he has a knack for showing up on nights when I'm already booked. Also, he really seems to like to play here around tax time, much to Jeff's frustration.
I actually had a ticket to see him earlier this year, but I would have had to go by myself, it was him sharing the stage with a few other folks to talk about songs (the format actually sounded really neat, but it wasn't really what I was after), and it was up against a UFC PPV so I sat it out. Sometimes I am fine with going to shows by myself and sometimes I am very not. Regardless, I was glad that he came back through town so I'd get the chance to see him.
Like the last show, this was my first time at a new venue - this time, Creative City Centre. I feel like Stefon describing where it is: "Located above a jazz club situated in a former shoe store in Regina's downtown, this place has everything." But then it trails off because it has two flights of narrow stairs, a dozen tables, bowls of pretzels, and Jeff and his friend, who beat me there. No human Roombas.
But seriously, this is a really tiny space. I said that the Artful Dodger show was intimate, but that place holds twice as many people. I'd have to think 50 people would sell out Creative City Centre unless they pulled the tables out.
Possibly the highlight of the night came when the lady who (I think) runs the place opened the show by listing off all the upcoming events. She got to the guitar jam, where guitarists of all skill levels come together to play and learn and talk guitar... stuff. Anyway, they're going to hold Regina's largest ever guitar jam in the park downtown, and they're all going to play the Experience Regina song - making this four straight public events I've attended with Jeff where that song has come up. I don't know if I should take him with me everywhere? Or would that just jinx things?
Our opening act was a collabo of two local artists, Dan Holbrow and Leo Keiser, about whom I knew pretty much nothing at all. I still know very little. They played six or eight songs with the two switching off on vocals. Keiser had a song called "I'm Bored and You're an Asshole," which is, I guess, really what a lot of songs are about, but I've never heard of one that outright said it before.
The venue filled up as the show went on, and it looked pretty close to capacity by the time Greg MacPherson started. Good for him, but that did prevent us from stealing a bowl of pretzels from a nearby unoccupied table. The only open spot was, oddly, front and centre, but MacPherson started off the show by insisting that someone move up from the back and sit at that table.
It was a very different show, possibly because it was a very different tour - not a tour at all, really. He and his partner were off to Edmonton for a wedding and he just picked up a few gigs along the way. He said he was out of practice and hadn't even remembered to bring any records or CDs to sell us (to think, I raided Mika's purse for nothing). His voice was a little hoarse and it did seem like he didn't have a set list and was just going to play for as long as his voice would hold out.
Last time, he played all of his songs that I know and love. This was decidedly not that. The bartender had requested the song Heatwave; someone requested it at the last show too, and I didn't know the song at that time. Here, it was the only song I'd heard before. Even Jeff, who knows much more of MacPherson's music than I do, only recognized a few songs. It seemed like he was trying out a lot of new material, and he was talking a lot too - lots about the political climate and general state of things, both globally and on a local level.
So it was quite an interesting show, and whenever I see him play, I think "this dude is super good and I really need to listen to his music more often." Just not quite the show I was expecting, which isn't a bad thing.
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