In the News
Tony D Christmas Reunion Bash delivers a blessed event of its own
Monday, December 16, 2002
Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa Citizen
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The Christmas tree perched atop the bank of speakers at Barrymore's Music Hall Saturday night stood at an awkward angle, but that was all right, because the blues ain't about nothin' if it ain't about crooked Christmas trees.
Besides, even a perfectly straight one would have been hard-pressed to remain rigid after Tony D, Suzie Vinnick, Tom Wilson and Jeff Healey were done jamming for the night.
The occasion was Tony D's ninth annual Christmas reunion bash, and the sheer energy of the four – backed brilliantly by keyboardist Richard Bell and drummer Matt Sobb – brought to the party was enough to make even a baby saviour's hair stand on end.
In front of a full house that ran little risk of being asked for ID by the bar staff, Vinnick and Tony D opened the concert with a pair of Christmas songs – Have Yourself a Merry Lilttle Christmas and Winter Wonderland – before getting down to brass tacks.
Those brass tacks included Vinnick's powerful voice and five-string bass on the The Animal's Dimples, which, halfway through the first set, finally got some in the audience out of the grooving zone and across the white floor tiles onto the dance floor.
"There's no city bylaw against dancing," shouted Tony D, "but there's almost one agains the blues," a reference to the NCC's recent decision not to allow Ottawa's Bluesfest back in Confederation park.
After that, and with the arrival of Wilson, everything was ramped up a notch and the dance floor wouldn't empty again until the show was over.
Wilson, whose presence, voice and acoustic guitar sound are all simply big, continued to rock with Lean On Your Peers, from his Blackie and the Rodeo Kings incarnation, following it with Freedom (recorded by Colin James and Mavis Staples), before settling in with a solo version of Dig It, from his recent Planet Love album (in truth, Wilson never really "settles in" – even his solo guitar sounds as if it's being backed by bass and drums).
The audience, a living, aging testament to the importance of the Blues in Schools program, was treated to a performance blessed with enormous talent. And if the fact that the ensemble hadn't rehearsed together occasionally led to slips of musical communication, it hardly mattered, because the badn was so tight, and clearly having a lot of fun.
Scores danced, while others stoop, transfixed, mute, cross-armed and motionless, swallowed whole by the experience. Healy finally appeared, to loud, appreciative applause, partway through the second set, and warmed up by backing Vinnick on Lonnie Mack's Oreo Cooke Blues, before testing out the microphone himself on Don Robey's Further On Up The Road.
And the crescendo continued, as his 10-minute version of the blues classic How Blue Can You Get was upped by the entire band on Little Richard's Keep A Knockin', which, in turn, was pushed aside by a blistering version of Van Morrisson's Gloria.
And by the time the all-star cast had finished its only encore – Vinnick leading the way on Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains The Same, the crowd slowly filtered out onto Bank Street, leaving behind deafening echoes of sugarplums, and the crooked Christmas tree.