15 March 2025

Of late I write a lot about my advanced age of 82 and how since the death of my Rosemary on 9 December 2020 I have little inclination to go alone to concerts, theatre and dance. I particularly avoid the large, and to me cold venues like the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and the Chan Centre.

The Orpheum for me is now an exercise in nostalgia for the warm personality of Bramwell Tovey. Few people that I ask now know who heads the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

 I think this city is culturally sterile. We have no real newspapers that inform us of cultural events in theatre, music and dance. And our CBC is now vacant in cultural programming with the exception of Ideas, Reclaimed and that intelligent The Debaters.

There is a happy exception. This is to be in the email lists of your fave groups. Many of those are headed by virtuoso violinist Cameron Wilson who is as busy as Leslie Dala. I reckon that their families no longer recognize them as they are rarely home! Another email  list of mine included The Turning Point Ensemble ,Yarilo and the Microcosmos Quartet.

Tonight I went with my designer friend Graham Walker to a concert called Get Back Unplugged - The Beatles Reimagined. It was held at the West Vancouver Yacht Club. After a longish trek on a curvy road we arrived to find ourselves in an out-of-context situation of seeing elderly people having dinner at many long tables. It occurred to me that I was probably older than most of them. A reality check it became for me. I first heard the Beatles single Love Me Do in 1962 when I was 20 in the house of a Yorkshire friend in Mexico City. Yes, last night I was one very old man.

 Cameron Wilson - violin, vocals

Andrew Hillhouse - guitar, vocals,

LJ Mounteney - vocals, ukulele, percussion

Allan Dionne - accordion, vocals

David Gibbons - guitar, vocals

Brent Gubbels - bass

The band, a most definitely not a cover band, played many Beatles songs that this musical ignoramus had no memory of ever hearing before. Thanks to my Beatles expert, Graham Walker I was clued in.

Such is the virtuosity of this band that I marvelled at how some of their Beatles versions sounded like Nova Scotia folk music or Tina Turner versions. The female singer  L.J. Mounteney performed her Turner impression and her singing throughout the night was stellar, and in particular, with all her little noise making devices.

The evening’s revelation to this amateur music critic, was the combination (they played on opposite sides) of British electric guitar/singer David Gibbons and accordionist/singer Allan Dionne (consider that I do not like the accordion!).

Mentioning those three performers does not take away from the other three who are a group called The Wahs. Cameron Wilson played his violin with dazzling virtuosity. Guitarist and singer Andrew Hillhouse injected his strong singing personality and bassist Brent Gubbles made his bass be the steady pillar of the group. I can only add that Gubbles follows the Vancouver tradition, perhaps begun by Mark Haney (he of the Isolation Commissions during the Covid pandemic), of bassists being extremely handsome.

I find it perplexing that there is so much musical talent in this city and that only a few lucky few like me are aware. CBC wake up!