David Francey-
Millpond Café,
(WWWWW)
In
the world of live performances, there are the ones who can’t play live even if
their lives depended on it, those who can play pretty competently live and
those acts who are truly engaging to watch.
Then
there’s David Francey.
Francey,
playing to a packed house at the Millpond Café in Alliston, Ontario (a 45
minute drive in the middle of nowhere northwest of Toronto), is a one-of-a-kind
performer, someone who can engage a crowd like no one can, and without the need
of jazzy pyrotechnics to do it. All he needs is his voice and his songs, which
as captivating as they were to begin with, transcend to the upper levels of
captivation to the point where you forget your surroundings or anything else
for that matter.
Playing
with veteran guitar wizard Terry Tufts (filling in for long-time players like
Dave Clarke), Francey and his tunes never missed a beat, displaying the kind of
soothingly engaging performances that you just never want to end.
The
most striking feature of Francey’s songs is how close they are to the album
versions, with several of those songs featuring things like violins and string
arrangements, to the point where you just don’t even notice it. For example,
“Come Rain Or Come Shine”, Francey’s best song to date, came out more ambient
and emotional than it did on the album with simply Tufts’ guitar playing, which
was so gifted that it covered the violin section of the piece perfectly. In
fact, the song was so powerful that beforehand a boy who had requested it puked
on the floor, perhaps unable to contain his emotions that the song he wanted
was about to come on. As an aside, it was one of the most comical episodes of
the night, in the “aw, poor thing” kind of way. The kid, after the show, later
told Francey how great he was, perhaps embarrassed about how the earlier
incident looked.
Another
striking feature of Francey’s show was his endearing kindness, as he repeatedly
tried to play the crowd into his songs. Twice he asked the audience (during
“Paper Mills” and “Nearly Midnight”) to sing along with him, with the latter
song’s chorus performed twice beforehand just so the crowd could do just that.
In addition, Francey fed off the crowd’s comments, exchanging dialogue with the
crowd all night giving the impression that he is as down to Earth as we all
were in the crowd, as well as telling the crowd before each song (like he does
in his album liner notes) what each song is all about. That Francey is also a
gifted speaker only helped his cause, as not only did it give his songs the
immediacy that he intends each one to have, it made the crowd want to hear what
he has to say about his material, as if he had written the songs specifically
for us.
The
most engaging moment was the a capella “Torn Screen Door”, the title track to
his first album. The song, about a old barn Francey was shown by a friend in
the middle of the wilderness while Francey worked as a construction worker,
showed off the power of Francey’s voice, showing that it alone is good enough
to carry his material (which is not to say that Tufts was useless- far from it,
as his playing added to the experience). It was also the show’s most intimate
and engaging moment, as there is nothing more immediate than hearing the emotion
and power of one’s own voice.
Overall,
the show at the Millpond was a masterpiece. It showed that Francey, like he is
on his albums, is a captivating individual, able to weave any and every moment
of his life into one of the most interesting stories ever told. Few musicians
have that gift, and fewer still can carry the same ambience and immediacy of
their songs from the album to the stage. If nothing else, the Millpond show
will go down in history as a showcase of a legend in the making.
-DG