We shared our recap of Joel Plaskett’s afternoon workshop with his good friend and collaborator Benj Rowland at the Peterborough Folk Festival earlier this week – but wait – there’s more! Scheduled to perform a solo set on the main stage later that evening, Team GDW naturally stuck around for a double-dose of Joel’s music on this glorious Saturday in mid-August.
We last caught up with Joel back in the summer of 2019, so were long overdue for an opportunity to enjoy his music once more – especially when considering that he has released three physical albums since that time – “44” (2020 box set), “Twenty Years Gone: Joel Plaskett Emergency Revisits Down at the Khyber” (2021), and “One Real Reveal” (2024).
With a 75-minutes slot on the “Miskin Law Professional Corporation” main stage at this disposal, Joel chose not to travel lightly, bringing along plenty of luggage – the hard shell variety, containing a selection of his favorite instruments. With his electric guitar, acoustic guitar, tenor guitar, bouzouki, and octave mandolin, he would treat those in attendance to a fabulous cross-section of tunes from his back catalogue.
Joel’s performance had already started by the time we arrived – having made our way with many others from another stage. With his electric guitar strapped across his chest, and a tale about Kelowna, BC being shared, we knew that “I Love This Town” was in full swing – one of several tracks taken from his 2004 “La De Da” album. Never one to shy away from conversing in-between songs, Joel would not only perform several cuts we had not previously encountered live but would provide some of the tales behind the origins of these tunes. The electric guitar would remain in place for a pair of tunes which, much to our delight, were taken from his later material.
“This one’s in memory of a fellow named Bob. Bob Switzer. He started Taz Records back in the day, and now there’s three locations of Taz. If Bob was still with us, he’d see Taz as the biggest music retailer in Nova Scotia,” Joel offered prior to a performance of “The Wizard of Tax,” from his “44” album. “All the records I bought from him, most of them kind of smelled like cigarette smoke because he used to smoke in the store. He liked early rock and roll. He was very particular. He only liked Roy Orbison before the ballads. He’d sell me Led Zeppelin records, but he didn’t like Zeppelin. He said you’ve got to go back to the original stuff. This one’s for Bob. It’s called The Wizard of Taz.”
After progressing into “High Summer” from his latest release, Joel would switch to his acoustic guitar and revisit his “La De Da” album once more to perform his popular hit, “True Patriot Love.” On this evening, however, Joel would share a tale of the song’s origins, which also prompted an alternate final verse that we’d not been privy to before. “I grew up in a town called Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, from the age of 4 to 12. There was a record store … on Lincoln Street that my folks would take me to when I was 5 and they started to buy me 45s now and then,” Joel reminisced. “The first LP that I purchased there was Billy Joel’s Glass Houses. I was pretty obsessed with that record, probably because it’s a great rock and roll record, but also because my first name’s William – so I’m Billy Joel – and here was a record with my name on it.” As for that alternate ending to “True Patriot Love” – Joel would add the first verse from Billy Joel’s “Sleeping with the Television On.”
Around the mid-point of his set, Joel would take time to discuss his invitation to the Peterborough Folk Festival. “I was reading the fine print of the contract here and just earlier today I looked at the stipulations of the contract and it said if you’re playing in Peterborough, you have to have a guy named Peter accompany you for a few songs on stage,” Joel shared, pausing for effect. “So, I called my friend Peter Elkas and thought maybe he could come along and join me on stage for a few songs.” Cue the arrival of the Toronto musician, and with his acoustic guitar in hand, did indeed stick around for a while to join Joel for a selection of tunes, commencing with “Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin’,” and “Soundtrack for the Night” – and with minimal pause, into “Deny, Deny, Deny.” Switching back to his electric guitar, Joel and Peter would add a lively rendition of “Through and Through and Through,” after which Peter bid us farewell (but would return to join Joel for an acoustic closing number later that evening).
If asked to select one of Joel’s stories behind the songs that stood out for me, it would be the tale of “Nina and Albert” – another cut performed from his “La De Da” album release. After discussing how he was invited to record the album in Mesa, AZ, and with some stops on his road trip along the way, Joel walked the audience into the origins of this song upon encountering a heavy storm in Texas. “I’m heading west across west Texas and the sun’s gone down and it’s about 8 or 9 at night, and there’s a ferocious storm that I’m driving into,” he recalled, whilst eloquently painting a scene. “I can see it on the horizon, and I’ve got a map out and I’m listening to the radio and they’re saying, ‘we have a funnel cloud warning for such and such county,’ and I’m like, I’m driving into a tornado. So, I stop in Fort Stockton, Texas, and I go to a gas station, and I say, ‘hey, I’m from Nova Scotia, am I driving into a tornado?’ And he says, “I don’t know about that, but you’re in tornado alley, you might want to get yourself a motel room’.”
“So, I checked into a motel room for 25 bucks a night, which for 2004 was still a really cheap motel, and I turned on the tv, and Blue Rodeo is on Austin City Limits,” he continued. “I was watching them on the tv and I’m trying not to eavesdrop, but in a 25 dollar a night motel room, the walls are made of five dollars’ worth of cardboard or something, and I’m sitting against the wall, but can hear somebody in the other room. It was a woman, and she was on the phone, and she was crying and saying, ‘Albert, Albert, I’m just stopping because of the storm, I am not cheating on you.’ And she was trying to convince this fellow on the line that she had stopped because of the storm, and it struck me, [that] I’m in a movie. I didn’t know her name, but I knew that there was a guy named Albert on the other end of the line, and I thought that maybe they needed a song, so I wrote a couple of little vignettes for them. I didn’t know her name, but I really love the name Nina.”
Set List:
- Love This Town
- The Wizard of Taz
- High Summer
- True Patriot Love
- Natural Disaster
- Nina and Albert
- Absentminded Melody
- Memory Complete Me
- Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin’
- Soundtrack for the Night
- Deny, Deny, Deny
- Through & Through & Through
- When I Close My Eyes
- Nowhere With You
- Hey Moon (A Campfire Song)
The British guy that crossed the ocean and crash landed in central Pennsylvania (to quote Greg Keelor, “And I wonder what am I doing here?”). As the youngest of four siblings, exposure to music from a very early age nurtured my passion and appreciation for many musical genres. Continuing to discover some amazingly diverse and talented musicians based in Canada, I gravitate to live music experiences and remain devoted to spreading the word about such a vibrant music scene.
