Twelve bright lights float across the stage of The Sinclair on a Thursday night. Two of them settle on the keys of a baby grand piano. In that dim light, viagra doctor a face appears and a voice speaks into a microphone.
“How’s everybody doing tonight?” it asks, unhealthy rx and then out slips a machine-gun giggle, hospital “heh-heh-heh,” almost reflexively.
The face, the laugh and the hands attached belong to Patrick Watson. His goofy greeting is a stark contrast to the wondrous intrigue of the floating lights’ entrance. The two moments are part of the same introduction to the same concert. Both are designed to set the tone of the night and music that will follow, but both create disparate moods.
In response to Watson’s strange introduction, a few chuckles run through the audience. “He’s so cute,” one woman says.
Then, the lights on the piano begin to move, filling the room along with the delicate beginning of “Lighthouse.” It’s gorgeous music. Watson and his band play it with passionate ease. The bass is full of character. When the song reaches its peak, the drummer bangs on his set with precision, creating a rich, deep layer that fills the song. The violinist, trumpet player and guitarist all spice it up, and together, the band creates that youthfully beautiful sound Patrick Watson is known for.
This is the soundtrack to the lightshow.
But when the song is over, Watson starts to talk. He talks and talks, stopping every once in a while for sips of beer and more reflexive giggling. His brain tries desperately to catch up with his mouth, inserting a “just kidding,” or waving his hands dismissively whenever he says something weird.
And before the audience has time to react or take in all that he’s saying–they’re still thinking about how he just said his shirt is from a porn theater in Montreal–he starts playing again, effortlessly filling the room with musical poetry.
The concert continued that way for the rest of the night. Watson and his band played their beautiful songs with precision and ease, and when they finished, he would take the mic and let the words flow, always punctuating them with that giggle.
During one of these speaking interludes near the end of the night, he went off on the Bruins, accusing them of all the things rival hockey fans accuse each other of. Then he remembered he was in Boston, and you don’t joke about sports in Boston. He giggled and brushed it off. He had promised his manager he wouldn’t do this, he said. He’s Canadian, he said, he has to. He was only joking; the Bruins are fine.
That’s Patrick Watson. On one hand, he’s fidgety and rambling, borderline uncomfortable. On the other hand, when he channels his energy into his music, it’s as magical as the dancing light show that first captivated the audience.
And for that, that woman was onto something. People adore him because he’s an amazing musician, but he never lost the energy, or the curiosity, of a child.
Photo Credit: Graham Zinger