GC and I went to a Bobcat house concert last night. The Good Lovelies were playing in local blogger Bob LeDrew’s house.
I first saw The Good Lovelies at the Folk Festival last summer, and was enchanted. They were even more enchanting last night. If you haven’t seen them before, they’re a trio of young women with gorgeous voices, beautiful harmonies, energy, stage presence, sparkling personalities, charm, an appealing and eclectic repertoire, and lots and lots of funny stories.
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My Feet and The Good Lovelies' Set List
Some of the highlights for me:
- Seeing the glockenspiel. My friend Bruce Campagna wrote me a letter about the glockenspiel when we were in grade two in Montreal and I was home with the chicken pox, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen one. It’s like a double xylophone in a little case.
- When the Good Lovelies sang Hallelujah as an encore. It had been stuck in my head since k.d. lang sang it at the Olympics, and I’d been watching various youtube renditions during the day, so it was my song of the day.
- When they told this freaky story of something they heard on the radio a couple of days ago, about a couple who was so madly in love (or perhaps just so mad) that they thought they should be one person instead of two. To that end, they started doing things to become even more like each other, including, for example, him getting breast implants. Then she died, but he continued to refer to himself as “we.”
- Cathy singing My Inflatable Man.
- Bob’s Stuart McLean imitation.
House Concert Boots (Including five pairs of Blundstones)
I’m going to a girls-only Valentines tea party this afternoon, and then I’m hoping to spend yet another romantic evening with GC, cooking and eating and drinking wine and watching the Olympics. Maybe we’ll even fire up the fireplace.
Since it’s Valentines Day, here’s a bit of scientific-romantic trivia for you: the reason candlelight and firelight are considered romantic is because they’re typically used in a semi-darkened room, which makes your pupils dilate, which mimics what happens naturally when you’re attracted to someone. So you’re both sending and receiving physiological cues that you’re attracted to each other. This all happens at a subconscious level of course. I imagine it could get subconsciously confusing if one person isn’t actually attracted to the other…but I suppose in that case, they’d probably already be consciously wondering why they’re doing something so overtly and symbolically romantic as having a candlelight dinner together in the first place.
As you can see Valentines Day is fraught with peril. Be careful out there.
Where is your fireplace?
At GC’s place.
Valentine’s Day has always been a weird day for me. I’ve never once had a date on V-Day, and when I had a girlfriend on this day we ended up spending the whole day at the hospital because she went into anaphlaxis. :-\
Oh forget about pupil dilation I have always been much more attractive in a darkened room.
Sounds like a fun group to listen to.
To further advance your musical knowledge: a glockenspiel is in a case, whereas a xylophone is on a raised platform with tubes underneath for resonance. A vibraphone has spinning circles inside the tubes which causes the sound to ‘vibrate’.
A marimba is similar, with wooden slats instead of metal ones.
*the more you know*
– RG>
So, are you trying to tell us that GC is getting breast implants?
Nice socks! I’m currently working on a pair of size 15 W’s for Jen’s boyfriend. My entry to the knitting olympics.
I’m the Bob of BobCat, and it is a continuing pleasure to introduce people to both the performers we get to host, and to the idea of a house concert.
It’s a special experience for everyone involved – the audience get to be literally feet from amazingly talented performers; the hosts get to watch people get this intimate experience; and the performers get an audience that is there to LISTEN to them and not do anything else.
The other great benefit of house concerts is that they can mean a big economic benefit to independent artists, in part because hosts don’t take any of the money.
It’s a lot of fun, and the more people doing this, the better for everyone involved. Sometime soon there will be a house-concert primer on http://www.ottawatonite.com.
And the Good Lovelies are both good and lovely.
Lovely socks!
and I don’t know why I laughed so much at all the Blundstones… but thank you.
The freaky story was an interview of Genesis P-Orridge on Q.