(Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

We recently made a quick visit to Toronto for a concert. Los Lobos have been on my musical bucket list for a while and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to see them.  Before showtime, however, we had a couple of stops to make.

Toronto has a great transit pass offer on weekends: 2 adults (and up to 4 children) can ride all day for a total of $12.00.  With single rides costing $3.25 cash, the pass pays for itself if 2 adults take one return trip.   We did that…and much more.

Our first stop was a neighbourhood that used to be known as “Little India”.  Somehow, I had never visited this part of Gerrard Avenue East (between Greenwood and Coxwell) despite living in Toronto for 3 years.  It’s now known as the “Gerrard India Bazaar” but it still has several blocks of restaurants and shops featuring food and clothing from the Indian subcontinent.

We were hungry and slightly overwhelmed by the number of restaurants, so we went to the first one that looked a little different from Kingston’s Indian restaurants.  Karma’s Kitchen featured Indian, Nepalese and Tibetan cuisine; I settled on a sizzling plate called Chicken Tangra.

After picking up some unusual food items (including a delicious Punjabi peanut brittle!) for home and dropping them off at our hotel, we did some music shopping in the Queen West/Spadina neighbourhood and then headed to The Annex.

I lived on the edge of The Annex many years ago and often visited this part of town for dinner and/or entertainment….and so it was on this night, as we visited the venerable Country Style Hungarian Restaurant on Bloor Street West.   As you can see from the photo, the size of the schnitzel did not disappoint!  There was lots of spätzle underneath and a cucumber salad besides.   It’s not fancy but you cannot possibly leave hungry.

We sauntered slowly from the restaurant to the concert venue.  It was all quite promising:  an acclaimed band, an acoustically renowned concert hall, a supposedly “unplugged” concert theme, and seats in the first row of the side balcony, right by the stage.  We looked forward to seeing and hearing with astonishing clarity.

Well, we did *see* Los Lobos up close.  Unfortunately, the concert was marred by unbalanced and muddy sound.  It was strange to be only a short distance from the saxophone player and yet not hear any of the notes he was obviously playing.  Same with the vocals; in fact, even the announcements (without music) at the start of the concert were unintelligible.  However, we did hear plenty of the wall of guitars.   Our ears rang for quite some time afterwards; this was certainly not an unplugged or acoustic performance.

I walked the length of the balcony, to see if we were in a sonic “dead zone”, but things didn’t seem to be any better.  Los Lobos finished their concert with a seamless medley of “La Bamba” and the Rascals’ “Good Lovin'”.  They clearly are accomplished and adventurous musicians – other songs wandered into portions of “Not Fade Away” and “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” before returning to the original Los Lobos song.

Despite the disappointing sound at the concert, our trip was still a success…particularly with some great finds the next morning at the antique market and spectacular gelato (as always) at “G is for Gelato” on Jarvis Street.   And we can listen to brilliant albums like “Kiko” at home anytime!

(Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

There was a lot of musical synchronicity over the past week.  I wrote about seeing Paul McCartney in concert, received a vinyl copy of McCartney’s remixed “Tug of War” album (featuring two duets with Stevie Wonder), and then went on a blitz of a road trip to see Stevie Wonder perform live in Toronto.

This wasn’t just a “greatest hits” concert:  Stevie was going to perform his entire 1976 magnum opus “Songs in the Key of Life”.  Widely considered to be one of the best albums ever made, despite an extended running length of almost two hours, it spawned both hit singles and “deep cuts” that have had a profound influence on popular music.   Almost everybody knows songs such as “Sir Duke“, “I Wish“, “Isn’t She Lovely” and “Pastime Paradise”…at least by tune, if not by name.

Stevie went onstage at 8:15 p.m. and it was clear that his voice had not suffered over the years.  He also had a huge 36-person band, including a string section, a horn section, a choir, multiple drummers and percussionists and at least 6 backing vocalists.  Songs such as “Village Ghetto Land” were improved from the album as they featured live (rather than synthesized) strings.  Special guests included April Ellington, daughter of…Duke Ellington!  This was a big, big show.

For me, the highlights came fast and furious with back-to-back performances of “Sir Duke” and “I Wish”.  “Sir Duke”, in particular, benefited hugely from the large horn section.  “I Wish”, with its prominent bass, fared slightly less well due to some low-end sound issues but was still memorable.  The low-end issues became rather distracting right before and after the 20-minute intermission but thankfully resolved before too much damage had been done.

While the point of the concert was to play the entire “Songs in the Key of Life” album in order, Stevie did embark on a few tangents. In the first set, he challenged his backing vocalists to match his singing gymnastics solo and without any accompaniment. They all passed the test with flying colours.

In the second set, Stevie played “Ngiculela-Es Una Historia-I Am Singing” with an unusual zither-like instrument called a “harpejji”.   After it was over, he started playing what sounded to me like the chords to John Lennon’s “Imagine” on the harpejji.  He then said that it was his brother’s birthday, to which the audience responded with polite applause.  But it also occurred to me, as someone who probably knows an unhealthy amount of Beatles trivia, that this precise day would have been John Lennon’s 75th birthday.

Sure enough, Stevie then said that he wanted to play “Imagine” for his brother, John Lennon.  This definitely wasn’t in the script.  He began playing the song and asked for audience help partway through the song.  It soon became clear why:  he began crying and was unable to sing an extended portion of the lyric.  He recovered somewhat, but wiped away a lot of tears (without apology) before he could continue with the next song.   A lengthy standing ovation ensued and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Concerts are obviously big business and Stevie is not a poor man.  But he is still a sensitive man and, 35 years after Lennon’s death, Stevie is still affected by his murder.  He urged the audience to do what they could to prevent senseless violence and intolerance.

Stevie then resumed performing the rest of his famous album with renewed vigour and finished it about 3 hours after the concert began.  He then assumed his alter-ego of “DJ Tick Tick Boom” for the encore and it is difficult to explain exactly what happened next.  To preserve the surprise, I’ll just say that he played snippets of some disco classics, abbreviated versions of a few of his other hits, and finished with a scorching version of “Superstition”  that made full use of the entire band (again with a memorable brass performance).  It was almost midnight when the concert finally ended; Stevie looked like he had thoroughly enjoyed sharing his music with us.

While there were plenty of Stevie Wonder classics that weren’t played (“Signed, Sealed, Delivered…I’m Yours” is one that I would have liked to hear), there simply would not have been enough time.   As with Paul McCartney’s 2009 concert in Halifax, we felt like we were witnessing a part of history.   We’re looking forward to reliving the experience by playing “Songs in the Key of Life” when we get home!