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A long weekend – 2

November 25, 2016 in Life in BC | Permalink

musicHard on the heels of my last post (which detailed the first two days of an elongated weekend of musical delights here in Victoria) and following a brief intermission, comes the second half… as it were!

To The Belfry theatre on the Sunday for a matinee performance of a new entertainment – “I think I’m fallin’” – based on the songs of Canadian singer/songwriter (and all round icon) – Joni Mitchell.

Now, one might argue – were one being particular – that this is not strictly a piece of theatre at all… at least not in any form that I have previously encountered. It is in fact more of a performed homage. There is certainly no overall narrative and such character as there be rises largely unfiltered from Mitchell’s poetic lyrics themselves.

The five massively talented singer/musicians brought their full vocal and instrumental gifts (including a couple of particularly wonderful voices and some gorgeous harmonising) to bear on new and in some cases most imaginative arrangements of the songs. Inhabiting the stage in a variety of configurations the cast mercifully resisted the temptation to over dramatise the selected numbers; the songs being allowed to breathe on their own and all the better for it.

If the above comments intimate in any way that I might not have enjoyed the piece then they have misled. Certainly it helps to be a Joni Mitchell enthusiast to fully embrace the show – but there is, as you might expect, no shortage of same in Canada. I came late to Mitchell (as to many things!) but I am now a perfect proselyte.

The final event in our busy (extended) weekend actually took place on Tuesday – giving us a much needed night off on the Monday. Along with 1500 other like-minded souls we gathered at the Theatre Royal in downtown Victoria to re-kindle acquaintance with a face from way back when; Roger Hodgson – co-founder and former member of Supertramp.

For many of us who were in our late teens back in the UK in the early 1970s Supertramp provided an essential part of the sound track to our growing up. Their beautifully produced and quirkily dramatic songs put them into much the same camp as Genesis and other similar(ish) progressive rock outfits. It turns out that – if anything – the band was even bigger in Canada than in Europe.

Supertramp were unusual in that they featured two main songwriters – in Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies – who shared the writing duties in a roughly even split. When Hodgson decided to leave the band in the early 80s Rick Davies carried on as the leader. Eventually Supertramp stopped playing Hodgson’s songs completely whilst the latter – now touring as a solo artist – featured just those compositions.

As is often (though not exclusively) the case neither constituent has been able to match the achievements of the original line-up (at least in the eyes of the record-buyers/concert-goers) and in both cases their later careers have consisted in the main of providing a nostalgic revisit to the glories of the past…

…in which – in this instance – we were happy to indulge.

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A long weekend – 1

November 21, 2016 in Life in BC | Permalink

indexI am habitually to be heard at around this time of year bemoaning the sorry reality that the weather has turned against us, that the nights are drawing in, that everything natural is dying and that this be my least favourite time of the year (at least until the following February or March; which months frequently offer strong competition). Shortly after voicing such jeremiads I am highly likely to be heard again – apologising to those for whom November is their birth month and as a result the main event in a much loved season!

Since our arrival in Victoria last year I have been obliged to modify this inveterate impression somewhat. The Victorians – presumably as a means of counteracting similar bouts of ennui – appear to have chosen this particular quantum of the pre-Christmas season to stage a wide range of quite unmissable events. Thus is was that over the weekend just passed we found ourselves with no less than four delectable entertainments to attend in five days.

In a post from early October last year I wrote:

“Friday found us back at the Mary Winspear Centre for another charity event for which the Girl’s best friend was helping to organize the silent auction. The most worthy cause on this occasion was the raising of funds to support the excellent work done by ‘THRIVE Malawi‘.”

This year’s equivalent fell a month and a half later – but still on a Friday. The main attraction was also a repeat performance:

“The centrepiece of the event was a concert by local ensemble – The HiFi. All you need to know about this assemblage of musos – who describe their schtick as “New Orleans, West Coast brouhaha” – is that not only are all concerned amazingly talented musicians, but one of them is actually an internationally reknowned boogie pianist appearing under a pseudonym for contractual reasons. Anyway, they all appeared to be having a lot of fun – as were we!”

We have now seen The HiFi twice and – frankly – we love them most dearly. If you live around Victoria do keep an eye out for them at Hermann’s Jazz Club, where they are regular – if infrequent – performers. Should you appreciate good music in any form you would surely find it difficult not to be impressed.

On the subject of the ‘dearly beloved’ – come the Saturday night we were back at the Mary Winspear to catch Barney Bentall and the Cariboo Express. Barney Bentall was a leading figure in Canadian music in the 90s and had a string of hits with his band – The Legendary Hearts. Of The Cariboo Express Barney’s website reveals the following:

“The Cariboo Express is a one-of-a-kind variety show cast with renowned Canadian musicians, led by Canadian superstar Barney Bentall, along with Ridley Bent, Dustin Bentall, Kendel Carson, Matt Masters, Wendy Bird, various special guests and a backing band comprised of some of Canada’s finest musicians. Each of the core members have music careers of their own, but every November the group convenes to raise funds for various worthy charities in the spirit of song, community and giving back to society.”

Saturday was our second time with the Express and it is difficult to put into words just how much fun this show can be. With up to fourteen musicians on stage at any one time – each of them having a seriously good time – no audience could possibly resist.

We didn’t even try!

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Cinquecento

October 14, 2016 in Getting started | Permalink

Image by David Bellot - Berkeley, CA, USAWell – who would have thought it?

It is to be hoped that the gentle reader might indulge me just a little if – with not the slightest intention of sounding my own shophar –  I express my astonishment at the relative longevity of this enterprise…

…by which I refer, of course, to this attractively eccentric almanac!

Yes – since I took my first faltering footsteps into the anarchic world of blogging on January 26th 2012 I have contrived to make additions to this agglomeration of arbitrary articles at roughly bi-weekly intervals. The end result of all of that tapping and scratching is (and I know that you have been keeping score!) that this is the five hundredth post since the imperceptibility of the immigrant was first imparted.

Very many humble thanks to all of those die-hards who have stuck with it.

I think a small celebration might be in order – and as that is something that is decidedly better done in the ‘real’ world rather than in the ‘virtual’, the Kickass Canada Girl and I will just have to do something appropriate here in BC! The reader may choose to take the opportunity to raise a glass for this (or indeed any other) reason at his or her own whim or fancy!

Cheers to all!

 

PS – Serious kudos to anyone who can glean the relevance to this post of the image thereto attached!

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Wine and sweet words

October 3, 2016 in Kickass Canada Girl | Permalink

birthday-clip-art“Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words.”

Plautus

The start of October is for us always a period for celebration, for it encompasses the joyous revels that mark the Kickass Canada Girl’s birthday. This year it has also seen the first anniversary of the purchase of our North Saanich abode, so the occasion has been especially elevated.

Some years a great deal of work can go into trying to organise a suitable programme of merrymaking; in others things just fall into place with the least possible effort. This year was one of the latter.

On Friday last one of the Girl’s favourite Canadian miserabilist bands – the Cowboy Junkies – played at the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney. The Girl was so delighted at the prospect (even more so when I purchased her a ticket!) that she generously decreed that I need not join her for the event. (She once took me to see the Be Good Tanyas at the Albert Hall in London – the which experience equipped me with enough melancholic ennui to last a lifetime!).

Needless to say, the Girl enjoyed the concert greatly – even though the band omitted to play her very favourite number (in spite of announcing that they would do so! I think this was just done to make everyone even more miserable!).

Scarce had twenty four hours passed than we were back at the Mary Winspear with our dear friends from Saanichton to attend yet another musical soiree – this time featuring Séan McCann – erstwhile singer and guitarist with Newfie folk/rock band – Great Big Sea. Now, Séan isn’t miserable at all. In fact he is really quite chipper, particularly since abandoning the bottle (and, indeed, Great Big Sea!) a few years back. He was in fine voice and made sure that all present had a really good time.

Sunday afternoon found us – yet again in the company of our lovely friends – back at the Belfry Theatre for the first of this year’s season ticket productions. The play – a slightly puzzling ‘contemporary’ take on Henry VIII’s last wife, Catherine Parr* – might not have been the best thing that we have seen at the Belfry (in fact it was quite some distance therefrom…) but it was none the less a nice way to round out the weekend.

All that remained was for me to whistle up on the barbecue (for the operation of which I still bear my ‘L’ plates!) a hefty but most succulent piece of rib-eye and to uncork a rather spiffing southern French red. Cheers!

A very happy birthday to the Kickass Canada Girl!

 

*Drat! I realise that in the first published version of this post I missed the opportunity to describe the production as ‘below par’! Oh well!

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Paying homage

September 1, 2016 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Image by B0rder on Wikimedia CommonsOn Saturday last – for the second time in as many weeks – the Kickass Canada Girl and I found ourselves witness to a gathering of Canadians making an unanticipated act of homage to a musical icon…

Having bid a tearful farewell last week to ‘The Tragically Hip’, this latter occasion featured a fair sized gathering of Victorians over two nights at the Royal Theatre bidding an unlikely ‘hello‘ to Sixto Rodriguez.

Some readers may already be familiar with the frankly bizarre story of Mr. Rodriguez and they may thus choose to skip ahead, but for those – like me – who were previous oblivious to his existence, here is a brief outline.

Sixto – known professionally simply as ‘Rodriguez’ – is a singer/songwriter from Detroit who had a brief and scarcely noticed career in the late 60s/early 70s during which he released two albums – ‘Cold Fact‘ and ‘Coming from Reality‘ in 1970 and 1971 respectively – which were critically well received but sold barely a copy. On being as a result dropped by his record label Rodriguez – phlegmatically and with considerable good grace – retired from the business and returned to his former career in construction.

This might well have been the end of the story were it not that – by dint of a speculative re-release of his albums and through much word of mouth – Rodriguez subsequently became a considerable sensation in South Africa to the tune of some half a million records sold. This rise to the status of a musical icon would have represented a gratifying – if belated – acknowledgement of his talents, were it not that Rodriguez himself was entirely unaware of this turn of events and the South Africans had no idea who he was – having been provided with none of the necessary back-story. Indeed, the rumour rapidly spread that Rodriguez had at some point committed suicide – though even here the details of his supposed demise varied widely from the merely tragic to the quite grotesque.

Eventually – toward the turn of the millennium – a couple of South African fans determined to discover the truth concerning his fate and the man was eventually tracked down to his home in Detroit. On discovering that he was – after all – yet alive he was persuaded to visit South Africa to play a series of concerts, which he duly did in 1998. This again might have been the end of the tale but for a Swedish film director – Malik Bendjelloul – deciding that the story merited turning into a documentary film. The resulting production – ‘Searching for Sugarman’ – has won a plethora of awards, including – in 2013 – the ‘Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature’.

As a result of the subsequent interest Rodriguez – now in his mid seventies – has resurrected his musical career and gone back on the road, whilst at the same time trying to establish what exactly happened to the royalties from all of the albums that he did not know he had sold in South Africa. The two sell-out shows in Victoria – in a 1400 seat theatre – pay testament to the ongoing curiosity concerning his story.

If one were to be critical one might observe that the career in construction has clearly exacted a heavy physical toll on the man and his once remarkable voice is a shadow of what it was. It is also obvious that when Rodriguez stopped making records in the early 70s he simultaneously stopped writing, and though his oeuvre displays considerable poetic talent it is also brief in the extreme. Nice to hear cover versions of other people’s songs from that era, but perhaps not entirely worth the rapt adoration that the man received from the packed house on Saturday. I couldn’t help but speculate that it was the narrative that was being applauded rather than the performance itself.

A fascinating study in philosophical anthropology, nonetheless…

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The Hip

August 22, 2016 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidFor three hours on Saturday night last Canada was ‘closed’. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) wall to wall coverage of the Rio Olympics was put on hold and there would even have been (had the hockey season yet commenced) a brief hiatus from the nation’s abiding passion.

Much of the country instead settled in (or partied out) to watch the live streaming from Kingston, Ontario of the final ever concert by ‘The Tragically Hip‘.

Canadian readers will require no further explanation and can skip blithely ahead. For many of them ‘The Hip’ have provided an iconic soundtrack to Canadian life for the last three decades and more, capturing the essence of Canadiana to a degree matched by no other. The band is – however – largely unrecognised without these shores and, though they have achieved some recognition in the UK and elsewhere, the Americans don’t seem to get them at all. This naturally endears them all the more to the inhabitants of these fair lands.

Non-Canadians might yet wonder why – in the age of the endless resurrection of their careers by those old enough to know better – quite so much fuss has been made of ‘The Hip’s’ farewell. The answer is tragically simple. Lead singer, lyricist and poet, Gord Downie, has an incurable brain tumour. To suggest that the occasion of the final concert was emotionally charged would be an understatement.

Prime Minister Trudeau (apparently a huge fan) was in the audience and Downie took the opportunity to publicly hold his feet to the fire concerning election promises, particularly with regard to the matter of the treatment of the First Nations. It is most likely that the many fans of the band will use this exhortation to endeavour to ensure that there is no backsliding on the part of the Liberal government.

We attended a splendid ‘Hip Party’ hosted by our dearest friends in Saanichton, complete with big screen and sound system in the garden so that no-one would miss the show. We cheered – we sang – we danced – we shed many a tear… The moment – and the occasion – was duly celebrated.

I am, of course, a newcomer – both to this fair land and to ‘The Hip’. The making of a myth – however – is easily recognised by those for whom such rites are an essential part of our existence in this realm.

I am one such.

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Hit the road, Jack!

August 6, 2016 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

DSCF6875Up at crack of dawn (well – almost) to catch the 8:00am ferry to Tsawassen. We are off once again on our travels.

There is this time – however – a difference in that we have with us a visitor – a relative stranger to these shores. My brother has come from the UK to stay with us.

This is not his first visit to Vancouver Island – he was here in 2010 for our wedding – but this is his first trip since we moved here last year and he is indeed the first guest from the UK to stay in our new home. The first of many we hope.

I have not to this point mentioned his visit through the agency of these jottings for good reason… I was sworn to secrecy! My brother has just turned sixty and his two really rather splendid sons (and his eldest’s excellent wife) arranged this trip for him as a birthday surprise. Kudos, chaps!

Anyway – we are off to the interior for a short break. No details as yet as some of that, too, is intended as a surprise.

What fun!

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Rock, paper, scissors – 2

July 30, 2016 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

20160724_192556My enthusiasm and regard for the talents, oeuvre and achievements of Mr. Peter Gabriel will be familiar to those who know me even a little and have been well flagged previously in these jottings. Posts acclaiming the London concerts at the commencement and the culmination of the 2013/14 tour celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of his seminal album – ‘So‘ – can be found here and here.

For several years prior to that particular odyssey I had been venturing the opinion that – since Mr. Gabriel was no longer a ‘spring chicken’ – each time a fresh concert series was announced it might well be his last. Each time he contrived to confound this uncharacteristically (for me) pessimistic view. Finally – upon our departure from my native shores last year – it seemed probable that we had indeed now attended our last Peter Gabriel performance, since previous tours which encompassed Canada had tended to include only one or two concerts within the country, and then usually only in the east.

Then earlier this year – to our great surprise and unconfined joy – the man announced a new tour… of the North American continent. Though sadly neither Vancouver nor Victoria were to be on the schedule Seattle, Calgary and Edmonton would all be within reach.

To our even greater joy we learned that the tour was to be a collaboration between Peter Gabriel and Sting! Wow!

By now even the most casual reader will have registered (pace my previous post) that this was the second objective of our recent visit to Edmonton. (The Seattle show had already sold out by the time we looked for tickets and given the choice between Calgary and Edmonton we chose to go to where we could combine the concert with a visit to dear friends).

Well – concerning the show, what can I tell you? I went to my first gig at the age of sixteen and I have been a pretty consistent attendee – at a wide variety of events – ever since. So – when I tell you that for me this was most probably the Best. Gig. Ever! – you’ll get some idea of just how highly I rated the show.

Had either star simply supported the other the night would have been magical. In the event they played a single seamless two and three quarter hour show. They played each other’s songs – they alternated verses and sang harmonies for each other – they interspersed songs, each climbing a little higher than that which went before… they were both in great voice and were clearly having fun! The two bands of massively accomplished musicians mixed and matched from track to track, regardless of to whose band they belonged. Given the extent, quality and familiarity of each artiste’s back catalogue it was little surprise that there was scant requirement for inter-song introductions – the audience duly went berserk as each much loved number became apparent.

We danced – we clapped – we whistled (well – the Girl did!) and we sang ourselves hoarse. A splendid, splendid night!

“Rock, Paper, Scissors”? – the name of the tour…

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Pandemonium!

July 21, 2016 in Life as we know it | Permalink

1280px-PandemoniumA little under four years ago the United Kingdom was picking its gingerly way through the mongrel days of the final run up to the 2012 London Olympics. It is fair to say that a great mood of cynicism – even pessimism – hung heavy in the air. The world financial crisis was at its height and it seemed somehow perverse to be spending a fortune on a festival of sport in such straightened times.

Perhaps worse, there was a very real fear that the country would wake the morning after the opening of the Olympiad to find itself the object of ridicule and derision for what many people believed was going to be – particularly by comparison with the lavish state-devised extravaganza from Beijing four years earlier – an amateurish and embarrassing debacle. On the night of the opening ceremony at least one UK journalist – submitting copy to catch the early editions before the event had started – penned a devastating critique along just such lines.

It took less than ten minutes for the great majority of those watching to change their minds utterly.

My post to this journal of the following morning included this:

As you may have deduced – I spend Friday evening watching Danny Boyle’s bizarre, amateurish (in the best sense), messy, insanely brilliant opening ceremony. I fell off the sofa laughing. I howled like a baby – at some points so hard that I could scarce catch my breath. In the kaleidoscopic whirl of layered references (oh what delight – an Olympic opening ceremony incorporating subtlety and ambiguity, whilst at the same time displaying complete self-confidence!) I repeatedly heard and saw images and ideas in the magical musical and visual smorgasbord that made me cry out, “Yes – that’s us… and that… and that…”

The gentle reader is most probably by this point scratching his (or her) head and wondering what could have triggered this brief exercise in nostalgia. The answer is – of course – the recent BBC documentary in the ‘Imagine’ strand entitled “One Night in 2012“. I am not ashamed to report that viewing this one hundred minute documentary – for which pretty much the entire creative team for the ceremony had been re-united – rendered me helpless all over again. On this occasion I was moved not only be the heart string-tugging moments from the show itself (though that did indeed happen) but by the stories of its genesis and evolution.

Confirming once again my view of Danny Boyle’s genius, we heard how the very impossibility of competing with the huge sums of money and military organisation that the Chinese had thrown at the Beijing ceremony had led to the decision being taken very early on that this show would not only be about ordinary people, but that it would feature them as the main element of the performance itself. To that end a huge army of volunteer performers was auditioned and cast as actors, dancers, musicians and stagehands.

I was touched deeply to see how the artistic team set about moulding such a vast company of amateurs with widely varying skill sets into well-drilled teams who not only put on the performance of their lives but also clearly loved every precious moment of it. The producers and directors, community choreographers, composers, drum tutors, costumers and technicians who helped to give this gift, not only to those involved in the show but also to the 80,000 in the stadium as well as to the billions watching on TV, were truly inspirational – in every sense of the word – and I doff my toque to them.

One delighted performer described how he had taken part in the show expecting to spend the evening applauding others – the athletes, dignitaries and so forth – but instead found himself part of a team that were themselves being widely and rightly lauded.

After watching the documentary I was moved once again to search out the film of the ceremony on the InterWebNet. I simply cannot get through it without dissolving. The climax of the opening Pandemonium sequence (which is, I think, exquisite in its entirety) as the newly forged Olympic rings come together above the stadium and burst into fire – leaves me gutted and gasping for breath every single time!

Kudos once again to all involved – and it still is not too late for the knighthoods!

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A year ago…

July 19, 2016 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

image“Isn’t it crazy how we can look back a year ago and realize how much everything has changed? The amount of people that have left your life, entered, and stayed. The memories you won’t forget and the moments you wish you did. Everything. It is crazy how all that happened in just one year.”

Author unknown

Were one to scour the InterWebNet (as did I earlier today) searching for a suitable quotation, an appropriate apothegm on the subject of ‘anniversaries’ – one might well discover (as, again, did I) that all such wit and wisdom that is to be found online concerns exclusively the matter of matrimony. Further, not one example actually concerns the business of marking the day itself – instead all exclusively wallow in the warm waters of the well of love! Rightly so in normal circumstances you might think, but connubiality is not on this occasion the subject of my discourse.

In the circumstances the unattributed passage above was the best up with which I could come.

In some ways it is actually quite fitting (though perhaps something of a truism) for today marks the first anniversary of my arrival on these fair shores – of that ‘first day of the rest of my life’ – of my landing in Canada as a Permanent Resident. It is therefore absolutely the case that in this brief span my life has changed utterly and completely – and in what feels now to have been the blink of an eye.

Where did that year go!

For sure, on reflection it is clear that the Kickass Canada Girl and I have achieved a great deal since the day a year ago that we arrived in Victoria bearing our lives in a small number of suitcases. Yes, there is much yet to achieve – but that is as it should be. We have not – after all – either of us reached to point in our lives when we are prepared to sit back, gazing out to sea and reminiscing on our past lives as seen through blush-tinted spectacles.

There is still ass to be kicked!

We will hold back the celebrations themselves as there are yet more anniversaries to be considered over the coming weeks, but we can at least raise a quiet glass in honour of this particular landmark with a certain degree of satisfaction.

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