SHOWS THAT ROCKED TORONTO LAST WEEK:

JOEL PLASKETT at Massey Hall Rating: NNNNN

It’s difficult to choose a favourite moment from Joel Plaskett’s Massey debut. Was it the way the pin-thin Dartmouth rocker first hit the stage – wide-eyed, smiling, full of awe – during Happen Now? Was it his hilarious intro to Rewind about why the Value Village Casio sitting on his knee trumps grandiose pipe organs? Was it the cameo by Miniature Tim in Love This Town? 

Was it the gorgeous 50s-girl-groupesque breakdown in Gone, Gone, Gone, courtesy of his fabulous backup singers Rose Cousins and Ana Egge, who brought breadth to his nice-guy rock? Or the way he gave them each a chance to play one of her own songs while he softly beat a bass drum behind them? 

Did it come during his final encore song, On & On & On, when he offered shout-outs to loved ones – filmmaker Helen Hill, his grandmother, musician Scott Tappen – who are no longer with us, then asked the sound guy to kill the P.A. and had us sing the words “White Fang” in honour of his ancient, earless cat, now on its last legs?

Ego-free, emotional, entertaining, inspired – this show was one of the year’s best.

by Carla Gillis

LINK: NOW TORONTO

Toronto – Joel Plaskett and his band The Emergency played Massey Hall last Saturday night. It was a great show shock full of feelgood east-coast rock. The unassuming Mr. Plaskett is on tour promoting his latest album Three. He was joined on guitar by his father Bill Plaskett, as well as fellow singer/songwriters Ana Ege and Rose Cousins.

The show started just after 8 pm and was broken up into two sets. The first was an accoustic set with Bill, Ana and Rose and prominently featured songs from Three. After a little a break, he was joined by his band The Emergency and rocked all the way to the 11 pm curfew imposed on Massey Hall. That’s nearly a solid 3 hours of music! …

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by The Panic Manual

 

I assure you, good things come in 3’s. Joel Plaskett thinks so too. How else to explain having the confidence to put out a rare 3-disc album that contains something for everyone: a disc of rock and roll break-up songs, one of more down-tempo acoustic songs, and one of smart indie-pop? And how to explain how Joel is a deft hand at all three genres? Or that there were 3 of us going to see his show at Massey Hall on Saturday night?…

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by Jason Carlin
Tuesday, May 26, 2009

I knew I was in for a fun night when Joel Plaskett came out and greeted the crowd at the self proclaimed “Charles Bronson Centre for the Arts” and proceeded to sarcastically apologize to Mr. or Ms. Bronson should he have offended them. As a first timer to a Joel Plaskett concert I was extremely impressed by the engaging character of the man himself and equally by the diversity of his talents. There was really a show inside the show too with the ongoing comic banter. Once my friend and I got past this particular venue for this particular show we had a great time. Seasoned Joel Plaskett fans could be heard complaining that there was no place to dance in the theatre style seating but in the true sense of the word fan later rushed the stage and got the party started.

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Life of Tunes

When it comes to rock music, there’s few things that can be said to be asking to fail more than the double album and the concept album. To the former, most artists have trouble coming up with enough quality material to pad out a conventional 10-song set and to the latter… well, I don’t think there’s any explanation needed there. And let’s not even get started on the double- concept album. So the fact that Joel Plaskett’s latest is a triple-album with a running theme should be a recipe for glorious catastrophe… and yet it’s not. Far from it, actually …

Plaskett has just begun a cross-Canada tour that will place him at Massey Hall on May 23, and courtesy of Maple Music I have a pair of tickets to give away to the show, along with an autographed copy of Three. To get in on this …

CHROMEWAVES

Plaskett’s warmth makes it just like home

Joel Plaskett invited his audience into his living room when he played The Pavilion on Wednesday night. The unassuming, fun-loving Plaskett played songs from several of his albums. Playing drums, various guitars, and his “high-tech wonder” (a 1980’s-vintage electronic keyboard, purchased from a Sally Ann), Joel enamored his audience into becoming his friends for the 2 hour show.

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By JASON BERMILLER
Special to Kamloops The Daily News
May 15, 2009