I'll give you this much and retire for the night: Geoff's set started off with a bottle of Jameson being passed around the audience and then back to the band. Singularly wonderful stuff, this concert was. The quote in the title is from a song about government cutbacks..
Now here I am, writing a day on, and still a little bit in awe of the whole thing. Between and amidst songs, Geoff would make little comments here and there, stop the music and get to talking. The whole thing was just so amusing, so much fun to be around. The atmosphere at Struts, with the carpets down etc, it made it feel like it was just these guys playing in somebody's basement. It was the three of them, Geoff Berner with his accordion and singing, Diona Davies on the fiddle and Wayne Adams with a djembe and cymbals. The three of them work so well together, they're all just so damned talented, and so much fun. Stories were interspersed on the subject of eastern-european tours and just, my word. Diona's fiddling was magical, it really was. I don't know how else to describe it. But I'm in love with the fiddle, and with the accordion... songs about drinking, songs about smoking, songs about living hard. Folk music, real folk music, played in a dirty klezmer tradition. He held the audience, his good-hearted stories and sarcasm and wit and alcohol. The songs have a piquancy, if I can turn a phrase, that make them so wonderful to hear.
That, and the fact that the crowd was in stitches through half the show, make this one of the best I've yet been to. I'll upload music sometime. Keep an eye peeled.
That, and the fact that the crowd was in stitches through half the show, make this one of the best I've yet been to. I'll upload music sometime. Keep an eye peeled.
