concerts

Ambient

/ Fiona McQuarrie / 1 Comment

A few months ago, I had never heard of William Basinski, and had never heard any of his music. But lately I’ve been getting into ambient music, because I like listening to it at work – it’s calming but it also helps me be productive. I wanted to explore the genre beyond its best known artists, i.e. Brian Eno and his collaborators, so I looked online for recommendations of other ambient albums. A Reddit thread on the topic of “best ambient album ever” had more than a few mentions of Basinski’s Disintegration Loops albums, so I found those on YouTube and started playing them.

The Disintegration Loops are astounding. The title is literal; Basinski took old analog tapes that he recorded decades ago, looped them into a reel-to-reel tape machine, and played them until the tapes physically fell apart. It sounds bizarre, but it’s fascinating to listen to, as the sounds on the loops gradually devolve and deconstruct.

Since this is not exactly mainstream commercial music, imagine my surprise when this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival program was released, and one of the scheduled events was a live performance by Basinski. From not even being aware of him to suddenly encountering his work and being enraptured by it, and now he was coming to play live in my city? I know when the universe is trying to tell me something. So I bought a ticket, and went to the show this week.

Being something of a newbie to this whole ambient scene, I had no idea whether there would be lots of people at the show, or embarrassingly few (which has happened at a few VIFF events I’ve attended). When I got to the theatre, Continue reading →

“Before The Dawn”, 10 Years Later

/ Fiona McQuarrie / Leave a comment

Monday, August 26, marks the 10th anniversary of the starting date of Before The Dawn, the 22 live shows by Kate Bush that were her first concert performances since 1979.

As I wrote in this blog post, when I got the completely unexpected notification about these shows, I knew I had to go – and I did. I saw three of the shows, and even now, 10 years later, they are still among the best live performances I’ve ever seen. Not just for the quality of the music, but for the incredible staging, theatricality, and attention to detail.

In 2016, Kate released a live album of the show’s music. At least three of the shows were filmed, according to people who had their seats at the shows moved to accommodate the equipment. Supposedly the filming was for a DVD, but Continue reading →

Love You ‘Til The Day I Die

/ Fiona McQuarrie / Leave a comment

Recently I came across a question on social media: “which musical act have you seen play live the most times”? I can answer that question very easily: Crowded House. In reading the responses to that question, it struck me that I should write something about all the Crowded House shows I’ve seen.

I first became aware of Crowded House when I saw them doing a live interview on the MuchMusic TV channel. I knew about Split Enz, the band that Neil Finn was previously part of – I actually interviewed them in 1980, when their single “Six Months In A Leaky Boat” was a big hit in Canada, and they played a show in Vancouver. The interview was at their hotel (the Holiday Inn on Broadway, for trivia fans) and I spent most of the time talking to Eddie Rayner, the keyboard player, because as soon as I arrived at their hotel suite, the rest of the band members seemed to disappear.  I remember them all being kind of shy and sweet, and somewhat overwhelmed by the publicity that was suddenly whirling around them. So when I saw Crowded House on MuchMusic, I clearly remember saying to my husband, “Oh, look, Neil Finn has a new band.”

Crowded House’s music hits me in a way that I really can’t explain. The songs are brilliant in and of themselves, but it just seems like so many of them spoke to whatever I was feeling or doing at the time I first heard them. I can’t imagine my world without that music.

It’s funny, though, that in thinking back on these shows, I don’t remember a lot of details, like specific songs that were played. That may be because every show has been incredible. There’s not a single show on this list that was boring, or a shameless money grab, or not worth the price of the ticket. Not too many bands can be that consistently excellent for nearly 40 years.

So here’s the stories of the shows I’ve seen, including a few extra ones. To shorten this very lengthy narrative somewhat, I’ll refer to Crowded House as “CH” throughout. And if this post is too long for you, don’t TL:DR me – read as much or as little as you want, it’s all good. Continue reading →

The Night I Didn’t Meet David Bowie

/ Fiona McQuarrie / 1 Comment

During the first part of my music writing career, which lasted from the late ‘70s to the mid-‘80s, I worked at two different daily newspapers, and wrote a lot of concert reviews on deadline. This usually meant writing the review the same night as the show, sometimes while I was still at the concert venue, and getting the review to the newspaper’s editorial offices so it could go into the next day’s newspaper.

At that time, there were no cellphones and no portable computers, which meant that filing a concert review from outside the office was always an adventure. To illustrate what this was like, I would like to share with you a story of one such adventure: the night I didn’t meet David Bowie.

To set the scene for this story, Continue reading →