Chad Van Gaalen

I know that Krista would like to post about the amazing concert we had the privilege of attending last night, so I won't give all the good stuff away, but will leave it for my Sweet Girl. The show was at the Horowitz Theatre a the U of A, so we did a fair bit of waiting (suitable for the liturgical season), but it was all worthwhile. It was incredible...truly one of the great performances, right up there with all the epic Vancouver shows of my halcyon youth...

One of the great surprises of the night (and they were manifold), was this amazing performer, Chad VanGaalen, who was the opening act. We weren't sure where he's from, but are thinking maybe Calgary, since our friend Amy knew about him. It was funny because before he went on we noticed a bunch of people up in the rows ahead of us were drinking bottles of Traditional and Grasshopper right there in the theatre, which was strange. I mean, usually they don't have any food or drinks in theatres like that, let alone glass bottles. So this usher came and told them they couldn't do that and had to put them away. But then a few minutes later one of the guys who was enjoying his beer got up on stage and turned out to be the opening act! Such good songs. He started off with banjo, whilst playing the bass and snare on kicks. Sort of Sufjan-esque. Very cool. Sounded a little like Will Oldham, perhaps a touch of Jeff Buckley. Then he switched to a Fender Jaguar, which had these lush guitar sounds. The vocal here was dead-on Neil Young. All the while Chad made mistakes and false starts in a charming way, which endeared him all the more to the audience. Especially the girls behind us who were literally swooning. Seriously. Swooning. Well, I was even swooning a bit, the music was that good. I think I might actually go out and buy this guy's record. Sweet music.