My First Prog Show!

Well, it was great. Despite a couple of technical problems (including the guitar that didn't sound quite right, according to my neighbour there). I only own three albums by the Strawbs, the usual Hero & Heroine, Dragonfly, as well as Grave New World, yet I knew about half the songs being performed last night, during the approximately 2 hours show.

Got there early enough, about half an hour before the doors opened, to quickly discover I was at a show where male outnumbered female by 10 or so, which unsettled me at first, but I quickly discovered once inside that the prog audience is a friendly one. Maybe it's from years of being bashed on the head about having shitty, pretentious tastes, and an urge to be nice to people who share those shitty, pretentious tastes, who knows. The Petit Campus, is a charming, intimate venue with a capacity of about 600 which means that even on the mezzanine, I was within a few metres of the band, with a great view of Dave Cousins, which sounds, even in his mid 60s, almost perfectly the same as he did on their 1970s albums, Dave Lambert on guitar (lovely vocals too!), of Chas Cronk on bass and of Rod Coombes on drums, who delivered a great drum solo in the second half, might I add.

Sadly, I was not smart enough to chose a place that provided a good view of guest player Oliver Wakeman (yes, the son of Rick!) on keys, and only managed the odd glimpses at his right hand, sometimes an elbow, here and there. We only got one real solo from him anyway, and that was was during the encore. It was yummy, he does have some big shoes to fill for me, since I'm not familiar with his own work yet, but I nonetheless found him very entertaining. He's obviously gifted, but I found him a little demure, perhaps. I supposed that The Strawbs' sound is not all that much carried by keys, as opposed to other progressive bands, but I would have liked to see a little more of Wakeman. That mind not even be a thought on hard core Strawbs fans' mind.

I got worried when a neighbour mentioned a tendency, back in the days, to show up super late for gigs, and playing only very little time, as well as something relating to Dave Cousins's bad temper, but the band showed on stage as planned at 8 o'clock, and quickly got the crowd going with Lay Down. Apparently, Hero & Heroine was hugely popular in Montreal, and they played a huge part of it, unless I'm mistaken, Autumn (a kick ass rendition right before the break, dang that song is soooo much better live), the title track, and Round And Round. I think they played Shine On Silver Sun and Just Love, maybe even Out In The Cold, but I'm not 100% on that right now, because I have a terrible memory for these things...

I'm pretty sure I remember The Weary Song and We'll Meet Again Sometime from Dragonfly as well. They also played two tracks from their newest release, The Broken-Hearted Bride (including a very strong and energetic version of The Call To Action, as well as the slightly weak title track). They also played the very pretty Tell Me What You See In Me, in the first part, which I had never heard but loved. They played from Grave New World too, New World and Benedictus... again, I think. They came back from a two-song encore, which the crowd very much appreciated and left it at that, with some kind of promise of coming back.

Overall, it was a great show. The band seemed eager to please, and for a first experience with live prog, it was quite a successful one for me personally. These guys have an amazing (although sadly forgotten in this town) catalogue, and turns out it sounds even better live. No washed up old rock stars there at all. They have great songs, a great sound, they're lively as younsgters on stage and seem happy to be there playing great music, what more could one ask for?