October 18,2007 - Concert Review, Kitchener, Ontario
Dave Gunning brings a little East Coast to the Registry Theatre
TheRecord.com
ROBERT REID
Over the past few years, Dave Gunning has picked up an armful of East Coast Music Awards.
In the newly published Top 100 Canadian Albums, George Canyon picks his friend’s 2005 ECMA album of the year, Two Bit World, as one of his top 10 Canadian albums of all time.
Gunning is intent on expanding his fan base from the Maritimes, where he honed his skills on the bar circuit for a decade, to right across Canada — and beyond.
That desire brought the Nova Scotia singer/songwriter to the Registry Theatre last night for a solo concert.
It marked an auspicious Waterloo Region debut.
Canyon describes Gunning as “one of the best storytellers Canada has” — and it’s not just friendship talking.
In the tradition of such contemporary folksingers as James Keelaghan, David Francey and Ron Hynes, Gunning’s preferred genre is the story song.
And he confirmed that all a good musical storyteller needs is a guitar and a voice that effectively gets his stories across.
Gunning poignantly commemorated the lives of people we recognize as our parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters and extended families, wherever we might live.
In typical Maritime fashion, he extended his storytelling to include affable between-song banter and introductions.
For much of the concert, Gunning drew material from Two Bit World and House for Sale, his new album that builds on the strengths of the previous album.
He opened his first set with These Roads, the opening track from his latest, a road song about the loved one who defines home.
Then it was New Highway, the opening track from the earlier album, about the ordinary people progress passes by, turning dreams into loss.
Other songs from House for Sale included Cowboy’s Dream (co-written with Canyon), Hard Workin’ Hands (co-written with Hynes on a napkin over beers in a Halifax pub), as well as the title track, a sad song about what happens when the mill closes in a single-industry town in Northern Ontario.
He also did Colleen Malone, a song written by Pete Gobel and Leroy Drumm that sounds like a traditional folk song.
Two Bit World provided Salt Water Hearts (about a married couple from Sydney, N.S. who weathered the good and the bad for 50 years) and Twitter’s Song (about a circus clown from Gunning’s hometown in Pictou County, N.S.)
Gunning ended the first set with a novelty tune from his Christmas album about Saint Nick drinking “all of daddy’s beer.”
And he spiced up the second set with a tribute to Stompin’ Tom Connors. He told about learning the standup bass in two months — which he described as “a dog making love to a football” — in order to tour with one of his musical heroes.
He recalled Stompin’ Tom’s job interview over the phone, which consisted of two questions: “Do you drink?” And “can you hold your liquor?”
When Gunning asked his friend J. P. Cormier, a veteran of Stompin Tom’s tour bands, how to prepare, he was told, “get your liver ready.” You’ve heard of River Dance,” Cormier quipped, according to Gunning. “This will be Liver Dance.”
Kitchener singer/songwriter Roger Schmidt opened with a five-number set of original songs and tunes, plus a couple of covers.
Later Schmidt joined his friend on stage for Henry Lawson’s The Outside Track and Long Black Veil, which Gunning has recorded on two albums.
Gunning returned for an encore of Prince of Pictou and left the stage to Schmidt to perform a lovely instrumental, Laurentian Hills, a tribute to where in was born and raised in rural Quebec.
In more than 25 years of covering the arts, I’ve never seen a headliner give the last number of the night to an opening act. It was an extraordinary act of generosity on Gunning’s part.
As it turns out, Gunning visited Kitchener once before, without performing.
Cormier, the award-winning multi-instrumentalist now based in Prince Edward Island, showed Gunning around his hometown a few years ago.
Mid-week concerts are perilously risky. Last night’s crowd was sparse, which meant a great number of local acoustic music fans missed the opportunity of catching one of the rising stars in Canadian roots music.
Hopefully, when Gunning returns it will be to perform before a well-deserved capacity house.
rreid@therecord.com
