THE JOURNEY OF A HEART: BASIA BULAT

Sometimes art has a mind of its own, or a heart of its own.

Even if that art is your own.

Basia Bulat is an incredibly talented singer-songwriter from Toronto. She is a multi talented instrumentalist, playing guitar, piano and a range of traditional folk instruments such as autoharp and charango a kind of ukulele from the Andes. She also possesses a soaring voice filled with vibrato and depths of emotion.

Most of her music could be safely classified as "folk" and was largely acoustic. But she decided to make a change, for an upcoming recording she hired on Tim Kingsbury of Arcade Fire to help her go electric or, as she puts it, "modern"

But something happened on the way to the recording. Something sad. A very close friend of Basia's suddenly passed away. She already written most of the songs needed for the new album. But this thing happened to her, this terrible thing that was in her heart and would not go away. That's where her art came in, her art told her that this should be the record, that this sorrow was where her music should go.

The result was the recording Tall Tall Shadow and for me, it's one of the most beautiful things I have heard in a long time.

I have owned this recording for about a year now and either from a CD in the house or my iPod in my car I probably listen to it at least once a week.

Yesterday I happened to be watching Breakfast Television and was learned that Basia was doing a show at Massey Hall ... the next day. Credit card, internet, tickets bought. Collette and I went to the show last night.

Basia Bulat going "modern" is this tiny blonde woman a six piece band including two backup singers and a pair of percussionists one of whom is her brother. Her mandolin is electric but her autoharp and her charango are still acoustic. I've listened to this album a lot and I thought that this woman would be good in concert. I was wrong. She was a revelation.

She is winsome and sincere and funny. After she introduced her band she said "I'm guessing that you know who I am" After the audience chuckled she remarked "I'm such a dork"

Her playing is extraordinary. After this concert I can view the autoharp and as a perfectly viable pop lead instrument. But I think she has a technique that may be difficult to replicate for some. As she played she moved around, swinging her head, her long hair flowing across the instrument. The secret to the Basia Bulat sound: Hair in the strings

When you see someone perform live after first hearing the record it's an interesting thing. You want what you heard on the CD but you want something more. Basia Bulat gave us more. She gave us those spontaneous moments you can only receive from a live show; connections between herself and her band, one of her backup singers also played the charango and there were moments where Basia, playing her electric mandolin "battled" back and forth with her; connections with her audience, there were moments when she seemed genuinely affected by our reactions, at the first standing ovation she stood on the stage, hands pressed to her face, eyes enormous.

There are the moments in a live show where a song is altered from how it appeared on the recording. In the song Paris or Amsterdam Basia tries to reconcile the loss of her friend by imagining that her friend is simply travelling and perhaps someday will return. She performed a very stripped down version of the song allowing us to hear the emotion in her voice, drenching the song with an even deeper sense of sadness than can be heard on the CD

One is often taught to save the best for last and Basia certainly did. The song It Can't Be You is one of the most simply produced on the CD, Basia and her charango and a very simple arrangement that highlights her lifting, ululating voice. For the concert, she made it even simpler, even more pure.

With just the tiny instrument in her hand Basia moved away from the mic to the front of stage, her voice now amplified. She paced back and forth, strumming the ukulele, she began to sing. This woman can sing. It rose up into the rafters of Massey Hall; at first, without amplification it seemed thin and tenuous but as the song moved on and her emotion intensified that voice got strong and stronger, a shivering sweeping thing of beauty.

This is why we go to see an artist live

This where art can take you, into a journey of the heart, the heart of the artist and the hearts of those who have come to listen to her

DANCING IN THE CROWD ALL BY YOURSELF

I seem him at every concert. At the Clapton concert I could see several of him from time to time. You've also seen him. Perhaps you are him. The Dancing Alone Guy.

He may not be alone, it's often hard to tell. But there he is, standing at a concert where everyone else is sitting, eyes glued to the stage, bobbing his head and waving his arms and singing the lyrics back ...

This is different from Dancing Alone Girl. You know it is. Don't try to act all cool and politically correct; in this society, at this point, we don't think much of a girl standing up and dancing all by herself but a guy ...

I'm not saying it's wrong. Well, except if I'm sitting behind him. I'm old. I paid a lot for these tickets. I'm not standing up just so I can see over you, now sit the fuck down. And the same applies to a woman, have no doubt. But if he's not blocking my view, well, rock on brother

I just wonder about it, that's all. I have no problem with dancing. Really, I don't. OK, my own dancing may be likened to a one footed chicken given a double dose of LSD then fed a high voltage, but I view dancing as a perfectly acceptable expression of music and emotion. But there are dance floors for dancing, and stages, and the roof of your house when the moon is full and the rain is falling and you just got new underpants and ... OK, that last part may just be me.

But to dance at a concert, not in the aisle with a partner but alone, at your seat, it makes me wonder. And what about the people with Dancing Alone Guy. Why aren't they dancing with him? Are they too staid, too shy, too stoned, too busy recording him for a future You Tube infamy?

Is Dancing Alone Guy's companions laughing, hiding they faces, ignoring him, or saying "This is OK, at least he's not singing"

When did Dancing Alone Guy start this behaviour? Was he once Dancing Alone Toddler? Well yeh, probably, we've all seen little tykes bopping and bobbing and we encourage this behaviour, as a rule. It's only later that he may learn it's just not all cool and macho to suddenly stand up in the food court and start doing the funky chicken. Though I've eaten a lot of funky chicken in food courts, but as always, I digress.

Does Dancing Alone Guy only dance at concerts? Does he do it other places? When shopping for arugula and chick peas, does he lambada with the shopping cart. At work does he try to limbo under his cubicle wall, or does he twist and shout in the library. No, probably not. People may get upset. And he may get a straight jacket and a shot of Demerol. Or just shot.

But a concert is a place where unacceptable behaviours are accepted. You can sit there bobbing your head, clapping your hands, singing out loud .. well OK, you can see that on the public bus too it is just not quite as accepted.

A concert is a communal event where the rules of behavior are altered by the event itself. Perhaps that's why Dancing Alone Guy does it, simply because in this situation, he can. Maybe in his mind or in his heart he is dancing in the supermarket or his cubicle or in the library. But he doesn't want to get melons tossed at him, or get fired, or have Dickman the Library Dick chase him down and call him "funny boy"

It's freedom. And expression. And freedom of expression. So rock on Dancing Alone Guy. But if you do it in front of my seat, you may get a slap in the head. That's my freedom of expression