One of the Canadian artists I really admire, both for her voice and for her versatility, is Sarah Harmer. She came on the scene in the mid-Nineties as a member of the band Weeping Tile (which I’m not musically familar with) but took the solo musician path in 1999. Her music is filled with her life experiences, occasionally the content is a little heavy but the melody tends to be light and full of hope.
This past Friday Firda and I (with my brother and sister-in-law) finally had the chance to see her in concert. The setting was the very intimate Orillia Opera House, where there was not a bad seat in the house plus the acoustics sounded great. The show lasted for almost two hours with Sarah (singing and playing guitar), and the rest of her band (a stand up bass player, a bassoon/piano/accordion player, a mandolin/guitar player and the keyboard/mouth organ player) playing songs from her four albums.
If you have a chance check her music out. Her second album “You Were Here” is the one that propelled her into Canadian superstardom (which means more than 10 people know who she is). Her latest album “I’m A Mountain” takes a bluegrass twist, which ends up being a knee slapping good time.
I also suggest that if you have the chance to see her live do so!!! You won’t regret it.
Addendum: One more thing. The only complaint I had about the concert we saw is that we had to sit in front of what I thought was a howler monkey. Later on I turned around and realized it was just a really annoying girl, who also liked to talk, hiccup and tap her foot loudly (out of rhythm with the music). Though even she couldn’t ruin the whole experience for us. 🙂