The Besnard Lakes - December 5, 2007

Bowery Ballroom [11 pm] ~$13

My chance to catch a band I was glad to find in 2007. The Besnard Lakes played a perfectly tight set of some of their best work. Their textured guitars and vocal harmonies set the mood perfectly. One song after another was an intense jam of high quality. From my recollection, they opened with "Rid the Rails" (perfect opener), and went on to play (not in this order) "Disaster", "And You Lied to Me" and "On Bedford and Grand" (to names those I can remember). They played two or three songs off of their first album, and each song they played sounded excellent between my ears. The only off moment of the night was the closer of their only encore. After setting a beautiful atmosphere with the layered, psychedelic sounds, they closed their "last show of 2007" with Fleetwood Mac's "You Make Loving Fun." Technically it was a great cover, and the drummer's vocal performance was exceptional, but for me it was a strange choice. I turned to Doug during the cover and, "This is really strange", and he just laughed. What a strange way to strip the ballroom of the original atmosphere the band created for us.

Oh, and the opening act, Peter from Peter, Bjorn and John was bloody awful.

Bert Jansch - June 10, 2007

Bowery Ballroom [10:30 pm] ~$18

The Bert Jansch gig was akin to a magical, Holy experience. Before the small crowd in the Bowery Ballroom (the show was not sold out), Bert Jansch sat on a chair with only his guitar, the microphone at his mouth. He played a beautiful set (playing Blackwater Side and Black Swan, of course). In between songs Jansch would tell personal stories related to why he favored a particular song (such as a song by Jackson C. Frank) or the historical or ethnic references to the folk tune he was about to play. Seeing Bert Jansch was like taking a bridge from the current world of rock music (a faithful devotee of his being Jimmy Page who copied Jansch's intricate style of playing) to the traditional folk songs lost in the time before major labels and A&R men. Bert Jansch's down to earth persona gave me a glimpse into what it must have been like to hear amazing artists grown on local stories, myths and traditions carrying one away from the ordinary day.