mmm... another wonderful concert, and so much good music!

Yesterday, I got to see Great Big Sea play at Manhattan Square Park. Great concert. In keeping with Fruhead tradition of writing reviews, here is my review:

Flashback one year. July 2000. A bright sunny day with all the anticipation of seeing Great Big Sea performing at the Party in the Park concert... I've put my sunblock on, the first act has finished, and here comes the second act. Also, here come some storm clouds from the south *uh-oh*. Second act is now sprinting off the stage, and here comes the rain! *oh-no!* Great Big Sea, washed out in a sea of rain.

July 2001. Another bright sunny day. I've slapped on some sunblock, hoping that the weather holds out, and I finally get to see the Great Big Sea concert that almost started almost a year ago.

The Opener: Joanna McNaney. Cute. :-) Chick-with-guitar. :-D "Not playing for my team" :-/ Oh well, can't have it all. With a style very reminiscent of Ani DiFranco, she strung together songs of experinces in her life, love found, love lost, and other stuff. She was good. I'm going to ask her if she would be interested in playing at Tuesday @ The Clock sometime. *crosses his fingers*

The Special Guest: The Mahones. I didn't know what to think of these guys at first, other than "they're late." Dino, the guy from 94.1 FM (The Zone. And while I'm at it, why don't you guys actually play Great Big Sea?), said that "last we heard, these guys were in Williamsville an hour and a half ago." Well, being from Williamsville myself, I know that the city is about one hour from Williamsville. So, they'll be here. A few minutes later, they were there... and a few minutes after that, they were set up, and through with their soundcheck. (Now if Fruvous were that fast...) It looked like a pretty normal 4 piece band, singer/guitar, singer/guitar, bass, and drums... well, no bassist in this group. Instead, we saw a guy with a tin whistle and an accordion. We knew we were in for something special.

Special it was. These guys rocked the stage with their celt-rock styles. Hailing from Kingston, Ontario, these guys kept us well entertained with their ballads, and rock-style tunes.

Great Big Sea.

It has been said that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and well, I certainly am fond of having Great Big Sea around :-) Their show was pure high energy, though there was a small murmur of "We want Murray [Foster of Moxy Fruvous who briefly toured with the band while Darrell had to attend to some pressing family matters] from the few fruheads who were at the concert. I never remember the set list from shows, and this one is no exception. Alan had some little quip about meeting Deion Sanders somewhere in the city during the day. (Deion got demoted by the Cincinatti Reds to AAA baseball's Syracuse SkyChiefs who were in town playing the Rochester Red Wings.) And yes, for the person who wanted, I did get a good picture of the drawing on Alan's guitar.

I don't think my camera likes non-natural light. I got some great pictures of Joanna, some good ones of the Mahones, and my Great Big Sea ones weren't so hot. Oh well. I'll figure out how to do them right, and I'll get them posted eventually.