It was a chilly autumn night, Friday, October 22nd, that brought Jason Collett to the Capital in Fredericton, New Brunswick. While the wind was howling and scattering leaves outside, the Ontario native was busy giving the eighty or so guests an intimate hour of storytelling, chuckling, and alt-country expertise.
Before Jason took the stage, Attack In Black’s Daniel Romano displayed some expertise of his own. Joined by his brother on snare, Daniel softly strummed in and out of romantic ballads and chanting songs, leaving the crowd swooning and asking for more. Romano played from his debut album Working For The Music Man, with numbers like "Missing Wind" and "On The Banks of Trilliums" making for an enjoyable start to the early evening show.
Click here for QRO’s interview with Jason Collett
Click here for photos of Jason Collett at SXSW 2010 in Austin, TX in the QRO Concert Photo Gallery
Then, at around 9:30, the main draw took to the Capital stage. Clad in a worn denim coat and jeans, and with a wool scarf around his neck, and his trademark eccentric hairdo, the Toronto troubadour threw his guitar strap around his neck and delved into an overcoming set of songs – songs quite adept at making one feel weak in the knees.
Despite being solo and suffering from a bit of a cold, Collett was able to make the most of what he had. Though it took him a few songs to get warmed up, the singer definitively hit his stride on "Almost Summer". Collett opened with a vivid and nostalgic story of smoking a joint with his high school crush, at the last dance before summer ended the school year. He strummed and sang with all he had, and the earnest nature of the tune was perhaps best exemplified on the hauntingly held notes of the closing – the words "high summer" from a loud declaration all the way down to a fading whisper.
When the whisper became silence, it was then time for a couple of new songs. Collett’s witty rhyme and southern drawl straddled the lyrics of "My Daddy Was a Rock ‘n’ Roller", before moving onto another fresh ditty with local connections. "Back In Gagetown" turned out to be a brand new song, written out of vivid story of a young couple in love and a soldier from a nearby military base going off to war.
That number flowed into a song about death, called "We All Lost One Another". The song was a little bit different in it’s solo incarnation; while it made up for the power of a full band, one couldn’t help but wonder if the question at the heart of the title related to Collett’s former band members leaving to form Zeus.
Thankfully, the heavy atmosphere disappeared into the windy night, and the singer brought back some of his youthful energy on "Love Is A Chain" With his black boots tapping gently but surely on the Capital’s hardwood floor, he crooned the Rat A Tat Tat (QRO review) standout, before closing his eyes and letting it flow on another, "Big City".
Collett then strummed along to one of his most well known tracks, and "I’ll Bring The Sun" seemed to have a sense of urgency. Without the gentle xylophone and harmonies of its album version, the song lacked delicateness, but made up for it with a hardened sense of genuineness and truth. After chanting the title/chorus, Collett set down his guitar, and thanked the crowd for a lovely evening. He disembarked the stage, climbed a nearby staircase, and just like that he was gone. The old brick walls, red curtains, and guitar cases and pedals strewn across the hardwood stage were left like audience members to wonder if it was all a dream.
