Our Streetcar

There are lots of streetcars in Toronto but this, the Queen Street or the 501, is ours. It is located just two streets to our north and I can see it from my office window. It is clunky, funky, antiquated, and slow but it works...most of the time.

This video and a few others are linked HERE.

Paul Kelly M-Z

The stage is set for night two.

I forgot to mention something from the first night. We exchanged email addresses with a couple of people around us. One guy was jotting down the setlist as Paul played the songs and agreed to send them to me. Another woman who we let squeeze between our barstools was taking photos and agreed to send those to us as well. When I got home that night I read the introduction from the book. It describes how the A to Z shows came about and how the audience reacted and behaved. What he described was exactly what we just witnessed…including the exchanging of email addresses!!

When we arrived at The Dakota Tavern for night two we jumped right up to the queue and found that we were right behind Loren, the woman with the camera the night before. Then up from behind came Jim, the man taking down the setlist from Friday. We had plenty of conversation to pass the time waiting for the door to open. It felt just like a party. Someone pointed behind the queue to the intersection of Dundas and Ossington and we all turned to see Paul Kelly scurrying away to beat the traffic light by himself. Something that is probably a little more difficult for him in Australia.

Our seats this night were nearly the same as before, just a couple spots closer to the back putting our vantage just bit to the side of the stage. Again we were excited and again we were not disappointed. This is not surprising since nearly every one of these songs is a ‘hit’ in our household. Two nights totalling around sixty songs, most of which are emotionally charged, left us feeling like we had been through a couple of marathons. We loved every minute and we are already looking forward to another chance to see him again in the future.





Meet Me In The Middle Of The Air (solo, a capella, single note from the piano for pitch)

Midnight Rain

No You

Nukkanya

Oldest Story in the Book

Other People's Houses

Pretty Place

The Ballad of Queenie and Rover

Randwick Bells

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

The Song of the Old Rake

INTERMISSION

Sweet Guy

Sydney From a 747

They Thought I Was Asleep

Thoughts in the Middle of the Night

To Her Door

Until Death Do Them Part

"V" -- "I have not written a V song, so Dan will entertain you"

When I First Met Your Ma

Wintercoat

X (rated) Outta My Head

You Can Put Your Shoes Under My Bed (solo, piano and harmonica; "This piano is more out of tune tonight than it was yesterday")

You're 39, You're Beautiful, and You're Mine

Zoe

ENCORES:

You Can't Take It With You

You're So Fine

Your Little Sister (Is A Big Girl Now)

From Little Things Big Things Grow

SECOND ENCORE

Summer Rain

Paul Kelly A-L

We were told the doors would open at six for the seven o’clock show. We got there about a half hour early and there were only five or six people ahead of us in the queue standing in the light rain. It was a friendly lot and we all exchanged Paul Kelly stories while we waited. Finally the doors opened right on time. Since we had been to the venue a couple of times before we knew exactly where we wanted to sit and had prearranged our game plan to get our favourite spot. While I paid the admission at the door Toni scurried down the stairs and straight to the bar securing our vantage point while others sort of floundered among the tables and chairs.

Now you may be wondering why we so intent on getting to both of these shows on back to back nights. Kelly has been putting on what he calls “A-Z” concerts for a few years now. They are career retrospectives in which he performs songs from his large catalogue in alphabetical order. At least one song for each letter. No songs are repeated on the two nights and they are performed semi-acoustic as a duo, Paul and his nephew Dan Kelly, playing all the guitars, harmonica, and piano. His goal is to perform the songs as close to the original demo form as possible.

As we waited for the show to start we quickly struck up conversations with people on either side of us at the bar. One of them had travelled from Ann Arbor and was meeting people from Montreal and West Virginia. Another couple had come in from Kingston, Ontario. Later, during the intermission I met a young woman who was obviously Australian. I knew she couldn’t have travelled that far. It turned out she had just moved to Toronto four months earlier. She had seen Paul Kelly perform this series a few times before moving however it was at arenas and she paid $70 per ticket!

As soon as Paul took the stage it was clear we were in for something special. For one thing they did not oversell it and there was no one standing in front of us. The stage was really just a six inch raised platform and Kelly was no more than fifteen feet from us. The sound was perfect for the room. The best part of the setting was the audience. They were all in rapt attention. No one was speaking at all as if were in church. All this enhanced the power of the performance and the songs, all of which we all knew intimately. I cannot think of another concert where I felt like I was so in tune with the artist and the audience. It was truly a communal event.

To the side of the stage was a pile white cards with large black letter on each. He started the show with “A” on a big easel and when he moved to “B” he would change the card on the easel. On a couple of occasions he forgot to move to the next letter the audience would remind him politely between songs. We even got an extra “K” song out of the deal. He is not one to break his contract.

We bought a copy of his book, “How To Make Gravy”. It is a companion book to this concert series. In it he describes how he came to write all the songs along with snapshots of his life and career. After the show Paul came out and spent time with everyone and he signed our book, “To Bill and Toni, Kansas City Here I Come, Paul Kelly”.

All the way home in the cab we were reveling in all the great songs we had just heard and pinching ourselves when we realized that we would be back the next night to do it all over again.

Adelaide

Anastasia Changes Her Mind (a capella, solo, with hamonica breaks)

Before Too Long

Blues For Skip (haunting work from Dan)

Careless

Coma

Deeper Water (beyond great)

Down To My Soul

Dumb Things

Every Fucking City

Everything's Turning To White

Foggy Fields of France

INTERMISSION

From St. Kilda to Kings Cross

Gift That Keeps On Giving (brilliant)

God Told Me To

Hard Love

How To Make Gravy (stupendous)

I Can't Believe We Were Married

If I Could Start Today Again (could have heard a pin drop)

I Wasted Time

I Was Hoping You'd Say That (PK at ancient upright piano)

Just About To Break

Keep On Coming Back

Keep On Driving

Look So Fine, Feel So Low

ENCORE: King of Fools (yes, out of sequence, alpha-wise)

Little Decisions

Leaps and Bounds

Paul Kelly intro

I stumbled on to Paul Kelly quite by accident. In early 1987 I received a CD in the mail from one of the record labels. It contained one song each from several new artists who were scheduled to have new albums that year. Right from the start there was one song that jumped out and grabbed me. It was Kelly’s song, “Before Too Long”. To me it was reminiscent of the acoustic style of The Beatles middle period, my favourite era (think of a mash up of some songs from "Help!"). When his Gossip CD came out I was ready and I devoured it as I did with all of his subsequent albums over the years. I have never been disappointed and Paul Kelly is right at the top of my ‘desert island’ list.

In 1988 Paul Kelly and The Messengers were the opening act at an outdoor concert at Smithville Lake in support of their second US release, Under The Sun. They would never play Kansas City again. As an Australian band it was simply too costly to tour America extensively and their efforts only garnered them a limited cult fan base. Future tours got smaller and smaller hitting only the largest North American cities.

About a month ago I got an email from his new manager, John Porter. I met John in New York last year when he was managing Carrie Rodriguez. His email included Paul Kelly’s itinerary. He was hitting five cities for two nights each. L.A., Vancouver, Chicago, New York, and…Toronto! I couldn’t believe it. He was scheduled for a Friday and Saturday and only charging $15. I immediately called the venue, The Dakota Tavern, and was devastated to find that both shows were sold out! What a rollercoaster. I quickly wrote John to see if he could get me on the guest list for Saturday night. He was encouraging but couldn’t be certain for three or four days. I called the venue back and put my name on the waiting list for Friday. I was assured that it was hopeless and my only chance would be to stop by the day of the show and hope for some no shows.

By the time Friday rolled around we were still undecided on our plan of action. We had received a commitment that we were on the guest list for Saturday. It was a bit cool out and raining steadily so we were starting to lose our enthusiasm for standing in line for what was probably a fruitless venture. After much discussion that morning we were leaning toward blowing it off. Five minutes later the phone rang and it was the venue. They had some cancellations and would we want them? We were in!

to be continued...

South Of The Border

Toni got to get up close to the Falls

When Toni took this photo I was about half way across the Rainbow Bridge
America and the American Falls are on the right

When we moved from New York City to Toronto we shipped a few large boxes to ourselves using FedEx. It was a bit pricey but manageable. We had the contents list pre-approved by customs when we made our earlier apartment hunting trip. The documents were attached to the boxes as instructed and they were supposed to fly right through and be delivered to our new apartment. That did not happen and FedEx held the boxes for a week. They wanted me to come out to the depot, pick up the documents, take the papers to customs for approval and then back to FedEx in order to get my packages released for delivery. This would have racked up well over $100 in cab fares. After about four days of phone calls I was finally able to speak with a person who understood the situation and that the documents had already been stamped approved.

We still had a few more boxes in storage in Kansas City. These contained non-essential possessions, mostly photo albums and sentimental items. Wishing to avoid another potential problem with FedEx I found another option. I figured there must be a way to ship them almost to Canada and thereby eliminating the customs problem. Sure enough I found that in every border town there is some business willing to accept and store packages for Canadians and they can be picked up and brought back by car. We set up an account with one of these services in Niagara, just across the US border. By shipping to this American address and not into Canada we paid just a fraction on the shipping and the US depot only charged $23 to receive and store the boxes for up to 15 days or 30 days for just a bit more. Toni had never seen Niagara Falls and neither of us had been to the town of Niagara On The Lake so we thought we could make it into a mini vacation at the same time.

Once we confirmed the boxes were delivered we rented a car. Monday morning I went about a mile to the agency to pick it up. I can’t fully describe the odd feeling of suddenly being behind the wheel of a car and driving the streets that I know so well but only ever as a pedestrian on the sidewalk or in the crosswalks. All the landmarks were in the same places but the vantage points were way off. Even traffic lights looked different. Everything was incredibly familiar yet strange at once. I picked Toni up at the apartment door and we were on the Gardiner Expressway in minutes and on our little adventure.

Once we were out of Toronto proper it looked like any highway in North America other than the highway names. Queens this and Kings that and Winston Churchill something. The British Commonwealth influence still looms large here. As we approached the border the signs for Niagara Falls came more frequently. At the same time the signage shortened the name to simply “The Falls” and finally just “Falls”. Coming into town you instantly get that familiar feel of a resort/tourist location. I noticed some changes right off with the “Times Square” influence. A giant Hershey store right next to the obligatory Hard Rock Café for instance. Then you turn the corner and there are the Falls. It is not a gradual buildup. It is just BOOM and there they are. You see the whole thing at once as if you just pulled a blindfold off. I won’t try to describe them. I simply don’t have the words.

Now the mission part of the trip really kicked in. I had no time to stop and enjoy the view. I pulled into an area marked for buses only and dropped Toni off. We didn’t see any reason for her to go with me across the border and back. We picked an arbitrary time of an hour and a half later for me to pick her back up; a quick kiss and I was off. I should mention that neither of us have cell phones anymore so there wouldn’t be a chance to adjust our meeting place or time. We were locked in and committed.

I looked off to the distance and could see that the Rainbow Bridge leading to the border was backed up with traffic that appeared to be hardly moving if at all. I felt my US passport in my front shirt pocket, fastened the seatbelt and headed to America. I followed the circuitous signs through town to get to the bridge. When I got to the right place the traffic was backed up for blocks behind me and I needed to somehow merge over a lane to the left rather quickly. I spotted a three foot gap between two cars and suddenly just whipped the front corner of my car into that spot without thinking about it. The back car couldn’t proceed and I was in the correct lane. It is like putting your foot in a door that someone is trying to close. As I straightened into the lane and started the long crawl across the bridge I realized that I had picked up this maneuver from the NYC cab drivers. I had observed it a hundred times but never used it or even knew it was in my bag of tricks.

After thirty minutes of inching across the bridge I finally was “greeted” by the border patrolman. I was careful not to keep my passports together so I was sure to give him the US one. He was rather brusque and intimidating. He started firing off question in a staccato machine gun style faster than I could possibly even answer. Where do you live? Where are you going? What is your purpose? How long will you be? What kind of work do you do? Why do you live in Canada? Boom, boom, boom. I stayed right with the interrogation although I knew I up against a pro. He even started asking questions a second time. I realized he wasn’t even waiting for the answers nor did care about them particularly. He was observing me and my reactions trying to trip me up. I can see how difficult it would be to stick to a made up story. He checked the trunk and finally waved me through. I couldn’t be upset with him at all since he is the first line of defence keeping bad guys from doing their thing.

Picking up the boxes was pretty uneventful. They were very nice and even loaded the boxes in the backseat of my car. Five minutes later I was at the Canadian border again. I had switched out my passports again to keep things simple. This direction there was no waiting at all. In fact there more open lanes than occupied. I was asked a few questions and told to pull over to a stall to be checked out. Another agent came out and asked to see the trunk. He didn’t bother with the three large boxes in plain view practically begging to be cut open. Satisfied with the trunk I was waved back into Canada.

Mission accomplished.

I zipped over to the meeting place and there was Toni and I was only about five minutes later than the appointed time. I thought about parking the car and taking in the view properly but we have plans to be back in less than a month so I figured that could wait.

On the way back we took a detour to the town of Niagara On The Lake. It is a bit out of the way in the middle of a large wine making area but it is well worth the time. Most of the buildings date to 1850s and older. Lush flowers line all of the streets and shop windows. I grabbed a quick bite and Toni had some local wine and we really got the vacation vibe. Despite it being a touristy spot we found the prices were actually much more reasonable than what we find in Toronto. We checked out the shops for a couple of hours and started back home. On the way out of town we came upon a small lookout point and saw the Toronto skyline from across the lake.

This is a typical restaurant in Niagara On The Lake at the corner of Queen and Victoria Streets

The Toronto skyline from about 45 miles away

MORE PHOTOS HERE

Justin Townes Earle

Friday evening we went to see Justin Townes Earle perform at the famous Horseshoe Tavern. Justin is the son of Steve Earle. He has managed to become successful without trading on his father’s name and has remarkably developed his own style of songwriting and playing. He has no doubt been influenced by his father’s musical tastes without copying Steve’s sound at all.

http://www.justintownesearle.com/

This venue, The Horseshoe Tavern, has been around forever and has hosted a ‘who’s who’ of incredible acts over the years. The building itself is 150 years old and originally housed a blacksmith shop. Since 1947 it has been a bar/honky tonk and artists like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Loretta Lynn played there early in their careers. More recently The Rolling Stones kicked off their Bridges To Babylon tour there in 1997. This was an ‘invite only’ last minute affair as the place will only hold 300 standing shoulder to shoulder.

http://horseshoetavern.com/glory_days.htm

While waiting for the doors to open, I received a small tap on the shoulder and a tiny female voice saying, “Hi Bill”. Now keep in mind that I know exactly six people in the metro area and I am 1,000 miles from my hometown so to hear my name called out is just impossible. To my complete surprise, I turned around to see my little friend, Amanda Shires. If you were a faithful reader of our New York blog you may recall that we saw her perform on two occasions there last year. Once I was able to recover from the shock of seeing a familiar face in my new city, I found out she was not the opening act, but would be the fiddle player and backing vocalist for Justin. What a great bonus! A little later before the show, Toni and I were able to separately have brief conversations with her and she told us how she and Justin go way back to the beginning of his recording career in Nashville and that she played on his first CD. Justin had to cancel some dates last year and when he rescheduled them he contacted her to see if she was available. She had a few days off from her own shows with Rod Picott and booked them with Justin. She was a fantastic addition to the lineup. Bryn Davies was recruited likewise to play standup bass.

http://www.amandashires.net/Amanda_Shires/HOME.html

We arrived early so we could snag one of the few seats to be had on one of the tables. We were able to share a booth with a U of T Professor, his son and his son's friends who were all huge fans of this genre. So we had some interesting conversation before and between acts to ease our impatience of not getting to see JTE until 11:15.

Little did we realize this was a venue without a good seat in the house. Only the people standing in front that arrived later would be able to get the complete experience. Luckily our booth had a ledge above it where we were able to perch ourselves and get fairly good views of the musicians. Being a sold out show, there were hundreds of people packed into this small venue so Toni's usual attempt at wriggling up front failed after a couple of minutes.

In addition to the less than comfortable seating, we endured a lot of drunk attendees. Upon our perches we were getting a decent amount of A/C cutting through the growing humidity and feel pretty relaxed and relieved the sound system was a great one. At that point about half way through the opening act, a very intoxicated woman standing behind us who was yucking it up with a couple of hippie bikers suddenly did a Danny Thomas spit take. Luckily, Toni only was hit with enough drops to get her attention, but one of the bikers good naturally took the brunt of it resulting in a soaked t-shirt.

About 20 minutes into JTE, the A/C could not keep up with the humidity rising from the damp basement cave below and the heat of the crowd. This was the perfect environment for Justin performing "Working For The MTA" because it was just like being in the worse NYC subway station on a muggy day.

The show was great though. Justin was entertaining not just with his music but with his between songs banter and self deprecating humour (much of it directed at his demons that led to the rescheduling to begin with). The highlight of the evening was the title track, “Harlem River Blues”, which the entire crowd sang along with from beginning to end unprompted. Usually I don’t care for the singalong bit but in this case the original song incorporates a gospel style backing so it was enhanced by this participation.

We really wanted to stick around and say goodbye to Amanda after the show but we were exhausted and anxious to get out of the sauna. It was nearly one in the morning but it is a snap to grab a cab at Spadina and Queen and in five minutes we were delivered to our door.