Wednesday, April 3, 2019 ~ WEST SHORE.
CONCERT REVIEW – by Mary P Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
Setting words to music is not the easiest thing in the world. Especially when the goal is to get the audience squirming in their minds while tapping toes in their seats.
This is not folk music that drifts you off into dreamy memories or future fantasy. The thesis-style lyrics of Jon Brooks combined with his trademark comfortable folk-rock sound is a combination he has crafted now for 10 years to make people think about uncomfortable things but to feel good doing it.
Based out of Ontario, Brooks, 50, makes his way around the country playing to audiences small and moderately larger. In the last week of spring break he played to four audiences on south Vancouver Island, hitting Brentwood Bay, Port Alberni, Metchosin, and Nanaimo.
It was on Saturday night March 30 that he landed in Metchosin, at St Mary’s Church on a warm springtime evening. About 35 people attended, truly of all ages – from seven to 70. Even the young female church pastor was there. And one person in a wheelchair.
Much of the audience was from the Sooke area, as well as recent converts to the Brooks sound.
“Word of mouth is the best way for people to find me,” said Jon Brooks at the intermission. “My people are a certain type and they find me eventually,” Brooks told West Shore Voice News.
This was the third Jon Brooks concert organized by Dave Gallant (formerly of Sooke, but now in Metchosin). Dave and his wife Marilyn organized this Brooks concert under their new organizational name of Metchosin Society for Music & Creativity.
Brooks is known for his hard-hitting lyrics about our tough socioeconomic times. He is a four-time Nominee for English Songwriter of the Year 2007/2009/2012/2015 as acknowledged by the Canadian Folk Music Awards. His latest album released in September 2018 is ‘No One Travels Alone’, which reveals more of his theological interests than previous albums.
Brooks quipped to the audience that he is “known for being unknown”. Ten of his tunes are downloadable on Spotify, but nothing compares to his live sound. Makes sense in the context of this quote from the singer-songwriter: “We are more digital than atomic.”
While his lyrics cover some tough stuff including guns and violence, heading to war, poverty, loss of privacy in a digital age and environmental destruction of the planet, the music of his own guitar (and that night also accompanied by long-time buddy in song, Neil Cruikshank) is soothing, like a background tapestry. It’s an intoxicating combo, toward achieving his goal to enlighten.
The words are delivered by Brooks giving over the vibrations of his guitar strings into the audience. There’s kind of a country flavour to it all, but with more of a twang in his voice than in the musical notes. It’s a trademark sound as he continues to build his following. Brooks weaves music from the air into sounds for the ear. It’s a craft and an art, and a passion.
His dialogue between songs is half the point of attending the live concert. Little missives Brooks delivers on stage: “There is hope for the world, the Millennials will save us all.” He explains that in the context of how young people responded to the MeToo movement and recent shootings in the US. “They did something different this time, they hit the streets (instead of just ‘hopes and prayers’).”
And he’ll run on a bit about common pop phrases like “it is what it is”. The response to that from Jon Brooks is “it never is what it is… that’s dullard nonsense, sounding vaguely Buddhist” which elicited a chuckle from the Anglican pastor in the room.
Brooks thanked the volunteers for these small town concerts: “You make my life possible. And that’s not just stage talk,” he said, thanking several volunteers in the room by name.
At concert’s end, the chant for an encore was sincere, and two more songs were played.
This sort of concert is for the intellectual listener who appreciates the warm blanket of tone that fills the room from the mix of guitar tone and digital beat. Making tough jarring verbal content feel safe — something you want to absorb — is no small feat.
“It’s my job to make people wonder, and to share emotional data,” he said after the concert. Indeed. “If it’s not love, you can’t take it when we go, wherever we go,” is the lyric that Jon Brooks sang to open the two-hour concert. He closed with: “We’ll all be ashes tomorrow, that is to say, there’s only love.”
But he’s not afraid to get political, bravely saying about the prime minister in troubled times: “I like Justin Trudeau. He’s a likable young guy with his heart in the right place. I like how he visits First Nations, coming down in a helicopter. He seems to understand the complexities of moving this country forward and shouldn’t be so harshly judged. Like the pipeline – it was there and couldn’t just be stopped. Canada is post-identity, a place where people are welcome. Canada is a young country. We are beyond nationalism,” said Brooks.
“I’m disappointed in the quantity of lying. It’s somewhere beneath mortifying. This is what the post-truth age is doing to us, disconnecting us,” Brooks continued.
Last call. Co-organizer Marilyn Gallant asked him to choose one of her art pieces from a sales table in the lobby. The one he picked was small enough to pack in his bag, but presumably he also liked it … blue and purple swirls: “This one reminds me of Jupiter.”
~ MPB