After 18 months of staying home, playing live streams, baking bread, watching Tiger King, we were finally able to play a live and in-person show.
We kicked off with the legendary Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto on August 28 with The Mooks, followed by The Atria in Oshawa on September 4 with Cigar Club.
If you weren't there, or even if you were, I'll try to give you some insight to what it felt like getting back to playing live again. As much as it's nice to connect on Instagram and Facebook, there's just so much noise, and so many bots trying to sell me Spotify plays. It's nice to be able to talk to you folks who've been so supportive. I'll aim to provide more updates via this blog, so stay tuned!
OK so here are some questions people have asked me:
Who's been playing these shows with you?
Olivia Cox - Keys
Max White - Bass
Jack White (no, not that one) - Drums
One of the bright spots during the pandemic has been, weirdly, spending more time on my phone and chatting to other musicians in Toronto. I met Olivia virtually when she hosted me on a live stream event during the first lockdown. We stayed in touch ever since and have become friends (even after meeting in real life). She's in an awesome band called Waxlimbs, and despite them releasing a song per month in 2021, Olivia made the time between that project and her own solo music (coming soon!) to play keys and provide backing vocals for the two live shows.
Max and Jack, AKA "the brothers", are some of my earliest Toronto Instagram friends. They have a band called Harmony on Mars, which you should check out. Psychedelic, garage rock. Their latest single was featured in an episode of American Gods. We opened for them in Montreal a couple of years ago and have stayed good friends since. They also helped me film the music video for Only for a Night.
Will it be the same band for future shows?
Jack might not be available for the next run of shows. All 4 of us had an awesome time together in rehearsals and playing the shows, so this exact configuration will play together again in the future though. In the studio (at home), I'm playing with all kinds of instruments and ideas so who knows if we'll add more people!
What was it like playing live again after all this time?
I'd been imagining it for 18 months, and expectations mess with your reality and make it harder to fully process what's going on. So when we walked into the Horseshoe to set up and sound check, it was surreal. When I play live I usually can't think of anything else but playing live; I'm usually very much in the present moment - it's why I love it - but as I looked out and saw people seated at distanced tables, sheets of perspex between tables, I was definitely in my head. I'll be honest, it took me 2 songs into the set to fully embrace the bizarre with the beauty and the magic.
I found that by taking a longer breath and looking around me at my friends on stage, and my friends in the crowd, I could remind myself why this was so important. After all this time, all we really wanted was to be close to one another and to be able to experience life together. I'm glad we got to do that, and I hope you are all able to do that.
Here are some photos from the show in Oshawa:
Photo by Hayden Trafford
Photo by J Atlas
Photo by Hayden Trafford
Photo by Hayden Trafford
Photo by J Atlas
