I thought Blue Moon Marquee was a two piece band? How did the Horseshoe get lucky and have a four piece band and a guest harmonica player show up?

Well we will delve into that very soon, but first, I thought the opening act was a perfect touch to such a great evening of music.

Sugar Brown

Sugar Brown quietly took the stage with a guitar and harmonica in hand. He settled in with his drummer Andrew McCarthy and started with an easy going blues tune to get the capacity crowd in the mood. Sugar added one of his original songs and that seem to take this audience on a cross country tour. The entire crowd jumped on that train and the evening went off looking for a good time.

With Sugar Brown, he can guarantee a good time. He slowed things down with another original called- “Love me twice”. This was slow and smoky. So just as you were reaching for a higher level of being, he dragged us all down with his dark song about dreaming about the Grim Reaper. Man, that song gave me the blues.

That is the thing with Sugar Brown, he is a master of twisting your moods with each song, so it feels quite cathartic by the end of his set.

My favourite moment was his story about an angry Korean woman who lost her house and barber shop to the government for no real reason. I really felt this woman’s pain amongst all the chaos in today’s world. Sorry for bringing you down, we should be rejoicing that we are very lucky to have talented musicians wanting to make our lives easier through sound.

Sugar Brown thanked Blue Moon Marquee for having him open the show. The last time they were together they had too much fun and Sugar couldn’t find his car that evening.

Well, our evening was a lot of fun, especially when he sang “Poor Black Maddie by RL Burnside.

When I walked into the Horseshoe, I wasn’t surprised by the place be absolutely packed with every seat taken up and standing room only was the way you could enjoy the show now. What surprised me was seeing how many blues musicians were in the audience awaiting this band.

I guess that what you get when you are an award winning band who has won Junos, and plenty of Maple Blues awards.

For me, what makes them special is that they use the momentous past of blues and throws a modern twist to add a new flavour. This seems to be a recipe that works for them completely. If I am not mistaken, the sounds and themes represent the Americana soundtrack layered with maple syrup and poutine.  Yes there is a Canadian sound built in. With an indigenous background, the stories feel more Canadian.

What made this evening special was that the band doubled in size. It was pretty cool watching Alison Young walk on stage with her sax and then seeing this tall young rockabilly character who turned out to be Peter Comier. He is a rockabilly keyboardist from Calgary. That is what makes this tour pretty special. Even though they are on the road as a duo, they are open to work with likeminded musicians to share in their musical journey. This way of playing will continue when they take this tour to Europe.

Well, like any show now, the people at the front all whipped out their phones, including me to record some of the show. A.W Cardinal, respectfully asked us to take some videos, but to keep it to a minimum. He would prefer the room to have a human experience instead of a phone(Y) experience.  Let people who paid good money to have the front of the stage and the recorders can do what they want at the back of the room.

I think one of the best moments came when they invited Sugar Brown on stage to play a couple of tunes with them. This is a no brainer for Toronto fans, because Sugar Brown is a wonderful staple in the club scene here and he is very popular. The moment I laughed was when they went into the first song called, “Let’s get drunk again”. Didn’t Sugar Brown swear off alcohol whenever Blue Moon Marquee was in town? A guy could lose a car with this band. The next song was about a bar at the top of the hill, a bar at the bottom of a hill and a bar nearby called Saddle Sore. Sugar Brown, you need to stay away from this band!

What makes a great Blue Moon show so good is that both A.W. and his wife Jasmine share their time on vocals, It really adds that wonderful juxtaposition with  two different vocal styles and the type of song they sing.  Think of Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor whose distinct style really fulfills the sound of the band.

Personally, I got a kick from their song called- “Double barrel blues”. It is a song about dancing with the wrong man’s wife. I smiled because the sound and rhythm of the song sounded a bit like the Muppet’s Theme.

When we made it to the second part of the show, I felt like we were back in the saddle again. Except this time I could hear some of Pee Wee’s Playhouse theme in there. This band is truly messing with my mind now. I hope I will be able to find my car later.

Well, that started up a small stampede of women getting up to bop around to this lively music. I got to watch one woman teach another woman some seriously decent dance moves. This continued with a song that sounded like a car chase scene back in the 1940’s and then we got to meet the Red Devil himself.

With all this devilish good fun, the night finally ended with a Charlie Patton tune.  Well, this was such a good ending; I could see Charlie Patton dancing from beyond.

Blue Moon at the Horseshoe:

Well, this is an evening that will go down as a rare treat and we may never see this again until you see a Blue Moon…

Here is their Instagram page, www.instagram.com/bluemoonmarquee/