BNL gave a great, sort of manic concert. Usually, they'll giggle slyly at their own jokes. This time around they were snorting and convulsed with their own jokes. Ed was greatly amused with his own description of Jim eating salmon by hand in his underwear. There was also a frankly alarming story of how Ed had a shouting confrontation with some pinball player in the last city they played. At the time, it was peculiar. Funny, as always, but more of a desperate uncontrolled funny. Frankly, a manic funny.
Then, they'd segue to a minimalist somber song upstage that just begged for a large group of a capella musicians. They'd clearly staged that (and a few other songs) so they could be joined by the Persuasions, who weren't there because of some emergency that called them home.
As it turns out, the emergency was the pneumonia of the Persuasion's bass singer. The singer died a few days after the concert I saw.
I just cannot imagine what it would be like to perform as a happy band, and yet to think at every turn: we have to cut this song because out friend's dying, we need to keep this in the set though it won't be the same ...
So, it was hilarious. Happily, not a manic hilarious that made me worry a moment about cocaine, but a laughing in the face of death hilarious.
I'm putting on my own private shows. Some of the drug induced nuttiness has abated, but next week I'll be starting another round of chemo and will be dealing with the craziness again, trying to put a creative spin on it.
I heard the Bare Naked ladies years ago at the Vancouver Folk Festival. They are ---different...
Posted by: Hattie | May 29, 2017 at 02:41 PM
Hattie - the former lead singer's father ran the VFF in the late 60s or early 70s, so it could have been as early as the 90s, when the band started. Was the drummer bald, or did he have dreadlocks? Because the drummer went bald early on.
Posted by: theQueen | June 05, 2017 at 01:04 AM