Emergence Exposition Opus 01

A few days before the show, I found out that Krista and Shane were play­ing a small venue in town. Usually I make it a point to see an artist just once in my life, but last time was dif­fer­ent; I was expect­ing Lederhosen Lucil, but was treat­ed to an entire­ly dif­fer­ent and unfa­mil­iar sound. This time, it was my chance to see Krista and Shane per­form after becom­ing famil­iar with the songs. Turns out the venue was in un petit salon des arts. This place boast­ed a mix­ture of dif­fer­ent art­forms; music, met­al sculp­tures, pho­tographs, paint­ings, and graph­ic poems.

I did­n’t real­ly feel like going out that night, but I forced myself to go, remind­ing myself that I could say the same thing any oth­er night and I’d nev­er get any­where.

Thumbnail: Entrance of the Emergence Exposition

When I arrived, the Salon was to capac­i­ty. I could­n’t even get in the entrance; there were peo­ple phys­i­cal­ly block­ing the door. My chance to get in came after a few had made room by leav­ing, then I saw a path up the stairs and took it.

Enter six degrees of sep­a­ra­tion.

With the met­al sculp­tures and graph­ic art poems upstairs was Nisha, who was the pho­tog­ra­ph­er for Pat and Jen’s wed­ding. We spoke for a bit before she intro­duced me to some of her friends.

It turns out that Nisha’s hus­band, Jérôme, was the pho­tog­ra­ph­er being show­cased1. They’re both friends of Frédéric and Misun through a teach­ing posi­tion, the painter and his wife. The Salon is also their house; fur­ni­ture was moved to make room for the art­work.

Thumbnail: James Cohen and Jack MacGregor
Thumbnail: James Cohen and Jack MacGregor
Thumbnail: James Cohen takes a bow

I had missed the cel­list and Shane’s per­for­mance (for shame!, I had my heart set on hear­ing a live per­for­mance of It’s A Drag), but I caught James Cohen as he was begin­ning his set. James is an elec­tri­fy­ing fla­men­co gui­tarist, who plays with speed and con­trol. Before leav­ing, I bought his lat­est album, which is quite rare for me at live shows2. He some­what remind­ed me of Jesse Cook, and I want­ed to men­tion this to him (quite a com­pli­ment, in my book), but bit my tongue in case such a state­ment may have offend him3. In the end, I asked him who his influ­ences were, and he gave me a bunch of unfa­mil­iar names. Jérôme is one of James’s gui­tar stu­dents.

Thumbnail: Thinking of a setlist
Thumbnail: Krista Muir mingles with the crowd
Thumbnail: Misun introduces Krista
Thumbnail: Krista Muir's expression
Thumbnail: Krista Muir in the spotlight
Thumbnail: Krista Muir and Shane Watt perform Hardwood Floors

Misun intro­duced Krista as an old ele­men­tary school class­mate. Krista’s per­for­mance (with Shane back­ing her up) was delight­ful. She began with some old songs not on any of her albums, and switched it up on the fly “cause it feels right”.

The thing I found most inter­est­ing was that Krista would nev­er look any­one in the eye. I do the same thing for per­for­mances and pre­sen­ta­tions, but that’s because I’m rather self-con­scious. I sup­pose that even nat­ur­al per­form­ers have the same sense of ner­vous­ness. It’s easy to get lost in the stare of an audi­ence mem­ber, and before you know it, you for­get what you’re doing.

The twist is that I rec­og­nized Corie, Krista’s sis­ter, from the last show. I had asked Julie to trans­late some Lederhosen lyrics, and we soon real­ized that Corie went to school with her. Julie was always won­der­ing why Corie’s Myspace mes­sage would say, “Good show!”. Yet anoth­er strange con­nec­tion.

Thumbnail: Krista Muir, me, Shane Watt

Before I left, Jerome intro­duced me to Frédéric — who exudes an artist vibran­cy — and we had a chance to talk for a bit before he had to see to his “guests”. It turns out that I had rec­og­nized Frédéric and Misun in some of my pic­tures at the last show. Along with them, Krista and Shane, I was the only one left in the house, of which over 300 peo­ple had come and gone, so I left because I start­ed to feel like an impos­ing house guest (lit­er­al­ly).

I stayed for about four hours, stand­ing the entire time, but I could­n’t sit at the bus stop. There was too much ener­gy in me that night. I had expe­ri­enced some­thing dif­fer­ent. A new begin­ning. The open­ing of a door.

I kept remind­ing myself how I did­n’t feel like leav­ing the house that night.

And how much I would have regret­ted it if I did­n’t go.

Other shows with Krista Muir and Shane Watt

  1. At the Workshop Studio & Boutique
  2. At Le Petit Salon des Arts
  3. At Irene’s Pub
  1. Pat had already met Jérôme and seen these pic­tures, as he and Jen met with them when choos­ing wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers. []
  2. I usu­al­ly go to a show to see a spe­cif­ic per­son per­form, which means that I already have all their music. On the rare occa­sion, such as this night, a dif­fer­ent artist will catch me. []
  3. I get pissed when some­one hap­pens to hear me play­ing Lederhosen Lucil, and they say it reminds them of Lily Allen. []

One comment

  1. man, this is a small town and small world some­times.

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