Quick Before it Melts

Saturday 24 April 2010

Great Lake Swimmers: back on home soil

Niagara is a rich and fertile region.  Besides the award-winning wines and succulent fruits grown in the peninsula, there’s an abundance of culture taking root and blossoming here.  In The Soil is billed as “Niagara’s Homegrown Arts Festival” and over the last two years it has become the premier showcase for artists with connections to the area.  This year, In The Soil welcomed Tony Dekker home, bringing his Great Lake Swimmers back to the place where he’s from much to the pleasure of a welcoming crowd at Brock University’s Sean O’Sullivan Theatre.

Dekker grew up just a stone’s throw away in the tiny village of W, where he first put his haunting roots-inspired music to tape in an abandoned grain silo.  That album, the self-titled Great Lake Swimmers is a masterclass in contemporary roots songwriting, and is the cornerstone from which Dekker has built an incredible cannon of work.  Last year’s Lost Channels earned him a Polaris Prize shortlist nomination, and just last weekend, he and his band played in St. John’s NL as part of the 2010 Juno Awards, at which they received a nomination for Roots & Traditional Album Of The Year.  According to Dekker, they had yet to clear the fog from their head and sweat out the screech from their Juno weekend, but any residual effect of those festivities was minimal on their homecoming performance.

Though it all started off as a solo project, Great Lake Swimmers have evolved into a proper band, and a well-oiled and tight knit band at that.  I was left in awe at how perfect each of the players fit.  Erik Arnesen is the perfect musical foil to Dekker; his restrained aggressive playing on “I Am Part of a Large Family” and the rollicking “Your Rocky Spine” provided the perfect counter balance to Dekker’s winsome voice.  Drummer Greg Millson and bassist Bret Higgins ensured that the rolling rhythms never slowed or became mired in sluggishness, and Miranda Mulholland injected a surprising (and very much welcomed) splash of sexiness.  That’s no mean feat in a band full of beards.

Dekker acknowledged that there were many familiar faces in the crowd, many of them clapping extra loud, but there clearly was no need to stack the audience on this night.  Niagara came out in droves with nothing but love for the hometown boy who made good on his talent.  One member of the crowd summed it up perfectly for all those in attendance when he boisterously told Dekker, “Don’t be a stranger.”  If he was ever a doubt that you can indeed come home again, Dekker knows now that Niagara will always have a candle in the window to welcome him home.

MP3: Great Lake Swimmers “Pulling on a Line”
MP3: Great Lake Swimmers “Your Rocky Spine”
Myspace: Great Lake Swimmers
Facebook: Great Lake Swimmers
Twitter: Great Lake Swimmers

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by J. Di Gioia | 2 Comments »

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 24th, 2010 at 10:30 am and is filed under LiVE, MP3. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.