The Wooden Sky – Il Motore – Saturday, November 28th
Evening Hymns, hailing from Peterborough, Ontario started out the night, immediately grabbing the attention of a pretty packed Il Motore on this particularly chilly November night. While they came on stage as a band, Evening Hymns is actually the solo project of Jonas Bonnetta. But on this night he was helped out by a keyboard player, bassist and drummer. You could tell that this was mostly Bonnetta’s project as he was the most involved in the performance. The highlight was the last song of their set when the band left and Bonnetta was on stage alone and he looped guitar, keyboards and his voice to create a wall of sound that capped off the performance perfectly, leaving us ready for the next act, Jenn Grant.
The night really picked up when Halifax, Nova Scotia’s Jenn Grant and her talented band took the stage. I say they are talented because most of the band members were multi-instrumentalists, and they played interesting instruments like violin, glockenspiel, wooden flute, stand-up bass and bass clarinet. But the true driving force behind this band was the adorable Jenn Grant, clad in her vintage dress and boots, and armed to the teeth with the most potent weapon she possesses, her wit and irresistible charm. She had the audience cracking up between songs and swaying blissfully back and forth during. Set highlights were “Rainy Day” from her debut album, Orchestra For The Moon and “Heartbreaker”, a song from her latest album, Echoes, which she described as a song about “when you dress up as a ninja and take out a giant sword and stab someone”. Grant and her band then all hopped off the stage and finished their set acoustically, in the middle of the audience.
So the stage was set for the band that everyone in attendance was there to see: The Wooden Sky. These guys just owned the room from the get go. They started out their set with the title song from their debut album, When Lost At Sea, but then spent the most part of the rest of their set just killing with songs from their latest LP, If I Don’t Come Home, You’ll Know I’m Gone. “Oh Lord Lord Lord, I’m too young to die” shouted guitarist and lead singer Gavin Gardiner on one of the night’s best songs, “Angels”, while bassist Andrew Wyatt blew feverishly on his alto melodica before slamming it down to complete the song. One of the biggest ovations of the night however came when the band played a rousing cover of Tom Petty’s “American Girl”. They seemed to have saved the best for last though, playing fan favourites”Oh My God (It Still Means A Lot To Me)” and “The Late King Henry” during their encore, with Evening Hymns members joining them on stage to help beef up the vocals and percussions. It was obvious that everyone in attendance had a great time, and I think the crowd may have even forgiven lead singer Gavin Gardiner for wearing a vintage Toronto Bluejays T-shirt. – Greg Lozoff
Evening Hymns
Jenn Grant
The Wooden Sky
(Photography by Leanne Craigmyle)
