(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)
While the sound wasn’t so great at the Los Lobos concert in Toronto, we have had a lot of great concert experiences this year in Kingston at the Grand Theatre.
Last fall, we saw Darlene Love…you know her voice, even if you think you don’t know the name. She sang on a bunch of the early 1960s records produced by Phil Spector but she was very rarely credited personally. She also was a back-up singer for some artists you may recognize: Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke, Tom Jones, The Beach Boys and Dionne Warwick, to name just a few.
Recognition came later: being admitted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, being named by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 100 greatest vocalists, being invited onto Late Night with David Letterman every year to sing her signature song “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” and then more recently starring in the feature film “20 Feet from Stardom” (which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2013). She was in Kingston as part of her tour to promote her new album cleverly titled “Introducing Darlene Love”. But she also sang the songs that first made her voice famous…it really sends a chill down your spine to hear “Christmas” live!
One of the great things about shows at the Grand Theatre is that the performers generally come out afterwards to sign autographs and pose for pictures. Darlene was no exception and it was great to meet her. She has been singing for more than 50 years but still sounds great and loves what she’s doing.
We also saw Holly Cole, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Johnny Clegg this year at the Grand Theatre. Each of them were inspiring in their own way…and we also had the privilege of meeting each of them and getting pictures and autographs from them.
It was especially cool to see Johnny Clegg (see photo at the top of this post) in Kingston. I first wrote about Johnny Clegg in this post from late 2014. We previously traveled to Ottawa and Niagara-on-the-Lake to see this South African legend perform but never thought that we would be able to see him in our hometown.
We were a little concerned that seeing him for the 3rd time in 5 years might not be as special. Happily, we were wrong. His set list was quite different and he seemed even more energetic than before. You get the whole experience at a Johnny Clegg concert – the incredibly joyous South African music that makes the crowd go wild…followed by reverent silence as the audience hangs on every word when he tells his fascinating stories. And the stories were all new too!
We’re really fortunate to have this facility in Kingston…I’m sure we will be attending some great shows in the 2016-2017 season as well.
Stay tuned for some travel flashbacks…and the countdown to our mysterious summer adventure in the Southern Hemisphere!