Galen and I went out to KC Hingley ’s Nowheresville CD release show last night, and I continued my frustrated love affair with the Victoria Events Centre.
It’s an attractive space with great sightlines, but it has a boring name. It has flexible seating arrangements, but a dorky guitar-shaped bar salvaged from The Hard Rock Cafe. It’s possible to have all ages shows with a liquor license there, but it’s always freezing cold. Seriously, I almost went home early because I was shivering despite my wool sweater and scarf.
Figure it out, Victoria Events Centre! I love you for your grand potential.
It was everything I liked about David Chenery last time, plus banjo, a Jack Black look-alike on bass, and a drummer who kicked off the set with a whistling solo. Bonus: totally aware of their death-zombies-death thematic tendencies.
“This next one is about a bunch of dead zombie children, heading off to work.”
“This is a love song about the apocalypse, when the moon turns to blood or whatever they said in Ghostbusters.”
“My wife usually sings that one and it sounds better, but she’s got a big kid in her belly right now…. Dead zombie kid, that is.”
David Chenery and the Lonesome Valley Singers website
Many years ago, an earlier incarnation of this band practiced in the spare room of the original Aloha House (aka Kelby’s mom’s house). Last night I realized I hadn’t seen them since those days. I still thought they played Celtic fiddle covers, and I somehow felt they were on a permanent folk-festival tour.
The Gruff do travel a lot, but they’re regularly on stage in Victoria at Spinnaker’s, playing original country-folk tunes with perfect enunciation and precise harmonies. I get the impression that any one of the Gruff girls could drink me under the table.
More importantly, it is time for Phaedra’s soldier-boy snare style to sweep the nation.
KC has perfected a very special underdog charisma. Man slouching in a glaring spotlight: a vision. He and sassy singing partner Liz Reed should team up to make a retro sitcom about newlyweds.
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