Spirit of the West live in Dundas Square (Toronto, 08/09/2013)

 

Nothing wrong with a free downtown concert.

A few things become quickly apparent when seeing Canada’s Spirit of the West:

1) these guys have aged but haven’t lost their edge one bit. great performers and musicians all the way through, playing the hell out of all their songs (albeit the unfortunate iPad lyric assistant)

2) they really only do exactly what they want

Their set mixed Celtic with jazz, folk.  To be blunt, a lot of it sounds like filler. Towards the end, the drummer inexplicably came to the main mic to sing a medley of That’s Amore, Stompin’ Tom’s hockey game song (as a tribute to his death earlier this year) and another bad cover which he himself described as a “mountain of crap”.  And it kind of was… it felt like a tacky wedding all of a sudden.

I went in thinking they had about two good songs.  I came out thinking they had two and a half.  But boy did Home For A Rest kill the room.  That’s what I came for.  And I got way more than I wanted.  And most of us would die happy knowing we did one thing that can light up a room.

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