| GBS in Westhampton Ocober 2009 |
| And afterwards Alan introduced the rest of the band. Bob Hallett on the whistle, Murray Foster on bass, also the band’s personal trainer. “That’s Kris MacFarlane back there on the drums, computer, Hammond organ - he can actually check his Facebook account as he plays.”
“Every smack is a little Twitter out,” quipped Séan. “I can see it now,” countered Alan, “Kris is playing now, Kris is playing now, Kris is playing drum, Kris is playing high hat, Kris is playing cymbal…” Alan gave us the lowdown on how he and Bob spent their afternoon, when Séan and Murray were running at the beach. “There’s something very cool about this theatre. Right down the hall is a door that says the Susan Lucci Room. I rushed back to the dressing room to brush my hair and teeth, and went back but she never showed up. There was no sign of her. But I wasn’t half as disappointed as Bob. While I was waiting, I heard someone else do the same, rushing back to brush their hair and teeth. You should have seen the look on Bob’s face when he peeked through the door. I’m sure he wasn’t expecting me! …You might not know that Bob is a big fan of daytime and nighttime soap operas. In fact, that’s the first thing I think about when I think about Bob Hallet – I think soap operas!” After everyone had finished laughing, Alan told about walking down the main drag in the afternoon, looking into the stores. “I saw lovely pictures of boats, pictures of horses and even pictures of horses on boats! (pause) I’ve never seen a horse on a boat. But you have some lovely big boats here." (looks at Séan) "Would you like to go for a jet ski or a pony ride? (pause) That’s a Puff Daddy boat!” And then Alan and Séan sang a song about a pony on a boat. Please don’t ask me the name of the song. Séan claimed you could buy a scale model of that boat that would fit a pony at the K-Mart in Newfoundland. “Do we even have K-Mart?” Alan asked. “We have K-F-C!” replied Séan. “Yes! We were down in Louisville, Kentucky the other day and it’s just called Fried Chicken.” replied Alan. Cue silence, big laugh, then Kris did a “Ba dump” on the drums. Alan went on to explain that the rest of the evening would feature comedy act drumming by Kris. Séan leaned into the mic and said to Alan, “You know you will eventually have to sing the song…” “Come all you friends I’ll sit you down and sing a doleful ditty,” Alan began. “Ba dump!” Kris countered with the drums and both audience and Alan broke up laughing. Séan leaned into the mic again and offered, “Take it away, audience…” and we did - "About a day in April month..." Alan quickly joined us and the song continued. Charlie Horse was a lot of fun on the stage as well as in front of it. When the song ended, it was Séan’s turn at the banter. This was a good thing as Alan was just so silly on stage tonight. “I checked on iTunes and this is one of our most popular songs. It’s in the top 400 anyway. I’ll tell you the story because you buy the iTunes.” Séan said it was a sad song, even sadder because it was about him. The guitar part began and it continued to play for about 6 measures when Séan leaned into the mic – “When I remember what the first verse is, I will sing it!” Bob leaned over to say something to him, supposedly the words. “Thank you Bob!” came from Séan. Kris had a bang-the-pipes sound for the first part of this. I don’t ever remember hearing that before. And low and behold, we got the Mermaid! It was apparent that many in the audience were hearing it for the first time. Big laugh at the end. “Alan always makes me sing that,” was Séan’s comment at the end. “It brings back some bad memories but it ends happily,” said Alan matter of factly. Silence… “We do have a list you know…” encouraged Séan to get on with the show. Alan took that opportunity not to sing the next song on the setlist but to inform the audience that it was Thanksgiving weekend in Canada. “Not like American Thanksgiving – in Canada, the Pilgrims sat down to eat with the hockey players!” said Alan with a grin. “This next song is from our popular album of traditional Newfoundland songs. You want to attack the pop charts? Sea shanties about Mermaids! …We’re trendy, we’re retro,” continued Alan. “Trendy as a bad tattoo,” quipped Séan. Alan was speechless for a second and then continued babbling. "We normally have all these conversations before the show… this is part of the process to include the audience in the show.” At that point, someone in the audience yelled "River Driver!" I guess they had surmised that from the band sans instruments except Kris with a bodhran. They were correct. |
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| River Driver was nice. The acoustics and harmonies were good and the audience quiet. I always appreciate a quiet audience for the quieter songs. Some things should just be listened to.
Brett ran out with needed instruments and “This is Here and NOW!” Alan announced without fanfare. And the band went right into the song. I could hear Bob’s harmonica clearer than any other times I had heard this song. Nice! For some reason, when they got to the “Walk a little further off the beaten path…” part, Bob’s voice was the one I could hear the best. I am not complaining, trust me. But I was pleasantly surprised. |
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| “We’re getting ready to do a new Great Big Sea record - it’ll be our ninth or tenth record. So we’re getting ready to do the new record and listening to some of the older ones. This is one that came into my mind the other day. "‘Hey man, …” Wow! I wasn’t expecting Let It Go! That was one of my faves from the Something Beautiful* album. That album has special significance for me as it was the first one without Darrell. Plus some of those songs are just something beautiful, like that one. |