Last night was Hawksley Night in Canada, a special house concert evening as Hawksley celebrated his 46th birthday with us all.
You’ll recall that we signed in to watch his Christmas HNIC last year, and it was awesome. Last night was no different in awesomeness scale. Truly, as James said, he’s the best.
After an intro about all of us still hanging on during this pandemic, and introducing the amazing Mr. Lonely, they launched into some amazing songs (with album of provenance), indeed:
When These Mountains Were The Seashore (Treeful Of Starling)
No Reason To Cry Out Your Eyes (On The Highway Tonight) (Lover/Fighter)
I’m Alone Here (Between The Beautifuls)
Brilliant.
Then it was Travel Time, where we joined his friend Stu Crookes for a tour around Paris, seeing where Hawksley lived and historical sites and monuments. An excellent video tour! Then it was time for another songs:
Dwindling Beauty (Let’s Fake Our Deaths Together) (Less Rage More Tears)
Next up was Pet Songs, where we see submitted pictures of people’s pets (cats, dogs, a hamster, a parrot). We were then treated to a new Hawksley song in tribute to a dog with a serious underbite named Rudy (The Rudester). Lovely and perfect!
Then we were outside in Hawksley’s driveway, getting a lesson on how to shovel snow properly, on GETTING IT RIGHT DOWN TO THE WOOD. That’s what she said. And as James texted to me, NICE SHOVELS)!*
Back in the house, it’s time for a Pub Covers mini-set:
Our House (Madness)
Life In A Northern Town (Dream Academy)
I’m So Sorry (Smiths)
I would happily listen to Hawksley do a whole set of cover tunes, just him and his guitar, Mr. Lonely on piano… oh man. These were gorgeous. How about a cover album, Hawksley? Stripped down like this? I’d be a first day buyer!
Next up was Hawk Talk, where Hawksley takes calls from viewers. This time it was an international affair, with calls coming in from Florida (James and I had a chuckle over the Sadsquatch, as Hawksley talked briefly about opening a show for Morrissey. SADSQUATCH.). Other calls came from Saskatoon (Kirby of the Broadway Theater), Toronto, Vancouver, Arizona, and Brampton. Lovely to hear these folks’ stories, and to see how natural Hawksley is in talking with people.
Time for another song:
Jealous Of Your Cigarette [(Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves]
A fabulous rendition with Hawksley really giving the vocals everything he had.
And then he set down the guitar and just sang while Mr. Lonely played piano:
Don’t Be Crushed (For Him And The Girls)
He did forget the words for a moment, at one point, but played it off easily and recaptured the spirit immediately. What a lovely song.
And with that, goodbyes were said and the night was ended. Perfectly in time to tune in to the Leafs game (which the eventually lost to Vancouver, but hey).
Thank you, Hawksley and Mr. Lonely for another great night! True beauty.
Live music can still live on as Hawksley has proven! We just need to stick it out a little bit longer. Grandma gets vaccinated tomorrow!
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Go, Grandma, go! Yep, this is our second Hawksley concert and they’re awesome. He and Mr. Lonely are so good, really special. Do you have any of his records? I probably told you about him, at some point…
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They may have lost to Van City, but that 3-game set against the Oilers was something else – with 3 different goalies no less!
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Man, I really wish Nugent-Hopkins hadn’t scored there. Imagine three straight games, three shut-outs, three different goalies. Crushing! As it was, the Oilers were pretty ticked (as seen in Draistl’s sarcastic retort) and I’m OK with that. Sadly, my son is an Oilers fan, so that was a tough run around here.
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And because hockey makes perfect sense, after dismantling the Stanley Cup-contending Oilers, those 2 games against the Canucks!
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I know. Honestly, they deserved to lose both of those games. They were out of sync. Tired? They just weren’t cnnecting on passes, making dumb plays in their own zone, and not consistently playing like they wanted it. Complacency, perhaps?
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The penguins are guilty of playing up / down to the opponent as well – they generally play a strong game against Washington but then forget to show up against Buffalo!
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I don’t know what that is. I think they really are tired in this compressed season, all of them, but when the Leafs are getting more results from their bottom two lines, something is definitely off. I wonder too if injury is a part of it, playing hurt on such little rest. Like, is Matthews’ hand actually better, or just good enough to patch up and play?
Did you see that last Boston/Washington game? It pretty much lived up to that old Rodney Dangerfield joke about going to a fight and a hockey game broke out.
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I’m quite enjoying watching Spezza thrive in his 4th line + 2nd PP + leadership role.
And the Boston commentary of that game was hilarious, after every Boston goal, the announcer kept zinging Tom Wilson!
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Thos eBoston announcers are terrible. Truly awful. The Washington announcer sounds like he swallowed a buzzsaw.
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Speaking of buzzsaws – there will never be an announcer quite like Pittsburgh’s Hall of Famer, Mike “Scratch my back with a Hacksaw” Lange!
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Ha yeah, that guy. I know that voice!
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