Concert Review: Julie Doiron, Feb. 3, The Horseshoe Tavern

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Concert Review: Julie Doiron, Feb. 3, The Horseshoe Tavern

Posted on

5 Feb 2011

by

Paul

Toronto – I estimate that over the years, and including her appearances with Eric’s Trip and as part of Gord Downie’s band, I have probably seen Julie Doiron upwards of ten times. And every time, it’s a different experience and she’s usually playing with different musicians (or on her own). On this occasion, she was backed up by Wil Kidman of Constantines and Woolly Leaves fame on guitar and drums.

It was a pretty loose, unstructured set (The only time I’ve seen her more loose and unstructured was when Patrick Watson made her make up a song on the spot during a workshop at The Hillside Festival a couple years ago) that basically consisted of her and Kidman making up the set as they went along. This made for moments like Doiron forgetting which song she was going to play or changing her mind about songs quickly. They also included several cover songs in the set – the Everley Bros./Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris/Nazareth tune “Love Hurts,” Neil Young’s “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” (which featured Julie on the drums), and Merle Haggard’s “Reasons To Quit,” about which Julie went on at great lengths.

And Julie does like to go on. Her set ended up being an hour and a half long. Julie herself worried that it was going on too long, as she worked to figure out a mini setlist for the last few songs of the night (Was it three songs left or four … maybe five?), trying to fit in both songs she wanted to play and songs requested by the audience which she thought would be good ones. And frankly, it was maybe a bit too long, yet it never felt like she overstayed her welcome. Of course, the length of the set was not just due to the number of songs played, but to Julie’s between song chats with the audience. These included musings about nakedness, the dangers of rental cars without snow tires, and whether the lake in Bath is in fact Lake Ontario, as well as a story or two about her kids. It seems she’s not quite the same person she was when she wrote “Talking’s not so easy/I wish i had more to say.”

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