Sarah Harmer at Sydenham St. United Church "So...Yay!"

Last night the lovely Sarah Harmer graced the stage in the Sydenham Street United Church in Kingston (she jokingly said that she wanted to be quoted saying "So...yay!" about her return to Kingston...so that's what I did there). It was quite an amazing space and she performed a wonderful, and very long, blue-grass inflected set to a sold-out audience. This show was part of a little mini-tour in support of her latest CD I'm a Mountain which, like Songs for Clem, has more of a "traditional" feel than her two solo albums. However, where Songs for Clem was a disk of standards, I'm a Mountain features new songs, a few older Sarah Harmer songs that were recorded for the first time, a couple of Weeping Tile songs, two covers of her friend's songs (Luther Wright/Chris Brown and Kate Fenner), along with a Dolly Parton cover. Good stuff. The show pretty much played out like the disk: songs from the new album, covers, and selected songs from her solo albums. She was accompanied by her "Acoustic Band" who brought out guitars, upright bass, piano, organ, the mandolin, the banjo, and the violin to great effect. She was personable and humourous (especially when she misread the set list or after she realized that said she wrote songs that she didn't) and her voice was, as usual, fantastic - clear, powerful (so much so that she sang the final song "How Deep in the Valley" without the aid of the microphone), and suited to all types of music. Last night she showed that she could take a turn at pretty much any style and it would sound wonderful and authentic, whether she sang pop/rock, bluegrass, country, or jazz. Another great Kingston show.
rgsc.