Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Busy in the Windy City

This past weekend Peter and I caught a good show at Schubas. Whitehorse. They are a married couple consisting of two singer song writers Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland. I heard of them because they do a stunning cover of one of my favorite artists Bruce Springsteen. Whitehorse performs a soft heart pumping rendition of I'm on Fire that I must admit rivals the Boss.

We walked in on the very end of that cover and got to witness the last 45 minutes of their show. It was an intimate setting with about 60 people or so seated in rows of chairs set up like church pews with an aisle up the middle. Peter and I were late and so had to stand in the back with the ruffians. I'd have to say my favorite song of their performance was about a blackout the duo experienced some years ago. They had the stage crew turn out all the lights and walked up and down the middle aisle singing and playing their guitars.

Both these musicians had/have solo careers and McClelland released an album in 2006 called Thumbelina's One Night Stand which received rave reviews for it's eclectic nature and all the artwork in the liner notes was painted by another famous musician and artist Martin Tielli. He was a member of the Rheostatics and also went on to do some solo stuff with Nick Buzz. The most important part of this tangent is that Peter and I own one of the paintings Tielli created for the liner notes of Thumbelina's One Night Stand. It is hanging in our dining room above the piano. So many links between musicians and artists. They all know each other you know. :)

I highly recommend Schubas as a place to see live music. Good sound and lighting and a nice small interested in the music kind of crowd.  There was one downside to our evening out.  A young gentleman we will heretofore refer to as sir douche kept turning on his camera phone with an intensely bright light for, I guess, maximum exposure. Sir douche was definitely the maximum exposure type. At one point he was holding the camera about 6 inches from the side of Peter's face. It was then that I had, had enough and reached over and gently but firmly pushed his hand away. This did not deter sir douche but at least he kept his blaring light further away from us. Other than that it was a lovely evening out with my husband.