Show #29 - February 27, 2010: Owen Pallett @ The Lincoln Alexander Theatre w. Snowblink

Have you ever have one of those nights where everything you do seems to have a quote to go with it? How about those nights where you seem to fall for everyone you come across? Tucked up on the second floor of the east side of Crown Plaza Hotel in Hamilton, the 700 seats of the Lincoln Alexander Theatre sit against beige fabric panel walls, aisle lights aglow. The upstairs windowed atrium housed both the bar and merch and looked across the street to Hamilton's downtown core. Owen Pallett and Snowblink were playing the theatre in what has turned out to be a quotable night of falling.

A friend who was at the show asked me at one point earlier in the day, "Who are you? Nick Hornby?" That was the way I felt during Snowblink:

"I want to date a musician."

"I want to live with a musician, [they'd] write songs at home and ask me what I think of them; maybe include one of our private little jokes in the liner notes."
(High Fidelity)

With no door time printed on our tickets, we walked in midset; coming around the corner into a darkened performance of Midsummer Night's Dream. A gorgeous nymph dressed in tattered pink held an antlered guitar as bells and chimes rang and a distant voice, like a dream sang backups through the underwater mic. Lilting and soft, Daniela Gesundheit is the woman you envision on a couch, pane glass windows filtering the light as it comes in on Saturday morning, playing classical guitar, writing and singing as you sleepily shuffle towards the kitchen for coffee. Her husband was standing on the other side of the stage however, and insisted on being a talented one man band. On keys, percussion, guitar and vocal duties, Dan Goldman accompanied Gesundheit as they flowed effortlessly through their textured ambient folk, looping vocals and tones over a set that included "Rut & Nuzzle," "The Tired Bees," "Stand Where The Fruit Tree Drops The Things It Doesn't Need" amongst others.

Now let it be known, I throw around the helpless, weak-kneed fall for female musicians declarations, somewhat easily. It kills me to see incredibly talented women kill it on stage. Owen Pallett marks the first musician man-crush I've had in a while. As you watch him build, construct, and compile the bold threads of each layered composition, there's a sense of awe and wonder. You want to crawl inside his head and see the parts; watch the delicate machinery of his classical mind as the string lines, percussion and vocals are choreographed into a fervent swelling existence. I sat in my seat with a smile on my face, leaning forward in anticipation of the next song whatever it was going to be. It didn't matter that I wasn't familiar with the discography; that Heartland (Domino, 2010) was my only entrance point to Pallett so far. With a hand to my face I bit the edge of my finger and laughed a little each time the sampler kicked back the densely knitted violin arrangements; Pallett making use of the string instrument as so, but also as percussion and bass when played through a pedal setup. Thomas Gill filled out the rest of each song providing "the fashion sense in the band" as well as backing vocals, whistles, percussion and keys. There's an otherworldly quality to Pallett's music; it's painfully beautiful, gently compulsive, labouriously free sounding. Pallett's set was sex and God. Drawn in large part from Heartland, it also included Final Fantasy era tracks like "This Is The Dream of Win and Regine" and "The CN Tower Belongs To The Dead." A hung-over, surreal feeling nestled in after the show ended. Hornby's pubescent fantasy gave way;

"His song smacked me in the face with a sting I had never felt before. I was awake to something I had never known before. Maybe it was sex; maybe it was the Holy Ghost; probably it was both."
(David Ritz on jazz artist Jimmy Reed)

But as we left the theatre and made our way towards Augusta St. (Hamilton's 'other' bar street); as we sat drinking pints at The Ship, talking about anything and everything that came across our minds path, I lingered on the ideas of both interesting women and interesting musicians and it was Salinger who won the night;

"That's the thing... Everytime they do something pretty... you half fall in love with them and then you never know where the hell you are."
(Catcher in the Rye)