Reviews

lindy

The last time I saw Bob and Lindy they were joined by another Canadian singer/songwriter called Danny. Unfortunetly Dannys is not with us tonight and rather than playing together each musician played their own set. Bob from Vancouver kicked things off. He's a very accomplished musician with four albums under his belt with a very clear and gentle singing voice and a country tinge. His acoustic style was built upon lots of delicate picking and gentle melodies complimenting his intelligent lyrics that told a story in every song. He has the ability to see things slightly differently hence at times his lyrics almost came across as modern poetry. He began with a couple of mellow songs with words such as "why does everyday feel like forever when I'm waiting?". The harmonica was then brought out almost reluctantly as apparently he could "smell fear in the audience last night" when it made an appearence. No need to worry however! This was a song about cheating on friends which contai! ned the line "We're never more blind than when we're looking at ourselves". A genius story about a purse snatcher getting hit by a car followed which conjured up great images with "Our eyes met as I bounced off your chevrolet". One gets the impression of a strong message contained within Bob's songs. "Find a light in the morning, find a right in every wrong, I might find a way to New Orleans, before I reach the end of this song" he sang in the next one. That eternal feeling of optimism. A clever Latin homage with a slow groove followed, written back in the day when Ricky Martin was all the rage. Then Bob played a really beautifull song inspired by a scene in the book To Kill A Mocking Bird. In fact I made a note of the exact location (page 8, three quarters of the way down if you really want to know!). "I'm drawn to her like water to the moon" demonstrates the poetical aspects of his lyrics. The penultimate song was a vast mish-mash of music and styles containing a couple o! f veiled tributes to Isaac Hayes and Weathermen. Bob introduced it as 'slightly self-indulgent'. It began as a slow three chord groove before Bob sampled his vocals and guitar and sang over the top of the sample creating a large ocean of sound. "Nobody told me, I got it figured out" he sang as he harmonised with himself. As the structure disintigrated he briefly went into "summer lovin happened so fast!" before the song ended. He came across as a really gentle and humble guy. He finished with a song that he wrote about a friend who would always call him up in the middle of the night until he wrote a song about it. The calls then stopped. Bob was driving straight to Norwich after the gig but he did give everyone the permission to call him at his hotel as long as they observed four rules. The first three I don't remember but the last was simply "at some point I'm gonna hang up". This lead us into a great closing track with a really feel good vibe to it and oce again a positive message. "Hang up the phone, turn off the light...tomorrows gonna be ! alright". Bob is a good musician who writes good songs and its a pleasure listening to him play. Lindy told us later that he is actually Bryan Adams guitar tech and when he gets days off he plays his own gigs. How accurate this is I can't say but its always great to see someone with lots of dedication to their own music!

www.bobkemmis.com

Lindy played the second set which contained a whopping 15 tracks. It was his last gig in the UK for 2006 and he fully intended to have a blast. A slightly younger guy than Bob and extremely tall I remembered that he is originally from Iceland although a fellow Canadian. I also remember that his grandfather was a fisherman for some reason! Like Bob he has a great knack for telling stories in his songs. His style is more upbeat country/rock n' roll and he has the perfect strong gravely voice that reminded me a lot of Ryan Adams. He completely had command of the stage and interacted great with the crowd. I really enjoyed his set and my foot was stomping along for a lot of the songs. He opened with the song 'Lake Winnipeg' and sang "I was only 3 years old when they threw me from the window" and "I was 21 when I married my Geraldine". The song then went into a middle bit sung in Icelandic about 'the little people'. "Up to the sky to Valhalla I will fly"! I remember the lyrics to ! the second song from last time I saw him play, "Everyone's got a dream, some of us can't remember what it was". A beautiful acoustically picked song was thired with the chorus "I'd rather just fall over your floor and come beautifully undone" Another catchy one was fourth which went intoi a song about living with somebody but not being in love with them anymore. They become like your sister and you want to help them move on. A concept a lot of people can relate to and not one that you usually hear sung about in such a positive way. This song contained a lot of melodic chord changes and some highly impressive falsetto vocals. Although Lindy has that raw edge to his voice he can seriously pull off some angelic wavering falsetto when he wants to! A further couple of good songs were played, one of which was inspired by a house Lindy used to live in with eleven hippies and five dogs. He came back one day and found someone had thrown up all over the bed. We know that one! An inte! nse new song was next ending with the meloncholy chant of "alone now and lonely" 'Hockey Night in East LA' then made its appearence as Lindy sang about hallucinogenics kicking in with an unbelievable falsetto and an off the wall ending of guitar string scraping on microphones and wierd vocal noises. He was merely setting us up as he confirmed with the comment "enough of the foreplay, lets fuck!" Genius! At this point in the set Lindy was on a high and intended to go out in style so it all got a bit nuts. He got onto the subject of Canadian, American and British hicks, or Chavs as we would say in this country. He wanted to hear a common British impersonation of one from the audience. Of course in true English style everyone remained silent for fear of getting beheaded...ah well. We did howver get a genius version of a certain song about driving a car, except this one was driven by a drunk, tatooed wife beatin' hick with vocal impersonations and all! A fantastic insight into life as a red neck. This took us into some 12 bar white blues and "I lo! ve humpback salmon" which very quickly swam away after detecting the appearence of The Subhumans. "I'm such a slave to my dick, it really makes me sick!". This was not the end. We were treated to a song called 'Window' which actually a song Lindy is playing in a new rock band in which he is the lead singer. He told us he won't know what the hell to do with his hands because he won't be playing the guitar! A good song which led into an even better old folk tune with harmonica and the classic words "I spent all my money on whiskey and beer, if the whiskey don't kill me then I don't know what will." A sudden cry of "I've gotta go home!" was then heard from the back of Porter bar. It was the sound man. With all this craziness we had all lost track of time and you still got the impression that Lindy would have happily continued playing all night! He finished his set with one last completely off the wall 'song' with wierd evil Bill Hicks like vocal impersonations, wailing, being ! shot in the head and a Spanish fiesta. "I hear voices calling me in the moonlight!" I could just about make out. After all that insanity he finished with the lyrics "Come up north with me and we'll raise a family". I'm sending my sister up north Lindy but we'll discuss that when you return hopefully in 2007!

Ed hutchinson