The night before I was at a show called Resistance Fest and now, I am reviewing a show called Elbows up. This is a marker in our history where we need shows to instill our Canadian heritage. I for one am not complaining, we have enough Canadian music to last a lifetime. We have plenty of songs that instill our pride for our country. These shows are reminders of how far we have come with our contribution to the world of music.

Michael Occhipinti put together a stellar line up of local musical artist to take on the task of recreating some of our most precious songs. Here is a list of the players that showed up.

Michael Occhipinti –Guitar

Elizabeth Shepherd- Piano

Lance Anderson- Piano

Max Sennitt- Drums

Nikku Nayer- Bass

Melanie Peterson- Guitar and vocals

Garnetta Cromwell- Vocals

Ahmed Moneka- Vocal

Suzie McNeil- Vocals

Lily Frost- Vocals

Paula Sofia- Vocals

John Finley-Vocals

Melanie Peterson warmed things up with her sweet and innocent version of Gordon Lightfoot’s, “If you could read my mind” and then loosened things up with her single, “One Tequila”. It was a good start to the evening. It was really cool to hear her song with a full band.

Garnetta Cromwell kicked things up a notch. Her version of Salome Bey’s, “Am I blue”, really stunned the audience. I have not heard of this Hamiltonian who drove for what seemed like all day just to get up on a stage to sing a couple of songs and wow a crowd. This is the dedication to artists who love doing what they do.

Lily Frost walked on next and shared one of her great songs called “Viridian Touch”. It is a song that is dedicated to our own Canadian painter Emily Carr. After that wonderful song, Melanie came back on stage to help Lily perform an early Leonard Cohen song, “Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye”. What an excellent choice.

The show took a nice, twisted turn when they brought up Ahmed Moneka. He is an Arabic singer that is making a real mark in the Canadian culture with his style of music. He stared his set off with a song called, “Amon”, which means safety. In today’s world, we need to be chanting this song in our head, over and over.  Ahmed even has us sing one part so we could carry this song close to us.

The show began to take a turn when they brought up Paula Sofia to sing the classic song, “Life is a Highway” by Tom Cochrane. Ahmed admitted to the crowd his first language is Arabic and Paula’s first language is Spanish. “This song has a lot of English words to it”, said Ahmed with plenty of trepidation. You see this mega-band only had one rehearsal and then go on stage and fly by the seat of your pants. The duo did trip over a couple of words, and we all took it in stride and had fun supporting the live concert experience.

After a 20-minute break, Suzie McNeil kicked off the second set with the Tragically Hip. She did a Latin style version of “Bobcaygon” and nailed it so well. Suzie went on to explain her next song, and we got to experience a few chapters in her life, before we boarded her “Merry Go Round”.

Paula Sofia came back on and added her Spanish flavour to her song called, Café No”, a song about coffee and apparently, she only drinks tea. Hmmm? Her Canadian contribution came from Feist with her big hit, “1234”.

The real fun came when she invited Ahmed back onto the stage with her. She was trying to come up with the proper English word to say they will not blow this song live on stage. Oh, do you mean to redeem yourselves? Yes, that is exactly what needs to happen as the crowd showed support to their next attempt. It was a big attempt as they challenged our ears with Leonard Cohen’s, “Hallelujah”. They stunned the entire room, because these two artists did the song in their own language. Ahmed’s Arabic version seemed to combine two faiths in one moment and Paula’s Spanish version just added that perfect sweetness. I guess I can call this moment, The Hugh’s Room Redemption.

Recently, I discovered a singer that has been in the Canadian scene since for 60 years. John Finley simply is a magical soul singer that needs to be seen live. He lives and breathes to be on stage. He opened his set with a song he did back at the beginning when he was in a band called, Jon & Lee and the Checkmates. I loved his road trip story about getting high for the first time with The Band as they headed to Michigan for a show.

In spirit of that moment, John went into “Rag Mama Rag” with Lance Anderson on piano. At 80 years old, John can still strongly belt out a tune. He proved it when he did a love song off his latest CD, Soul Singer. It is a love letter called, “Dear Deliah”. He did a vocal solo that left the audience breathless.

The final three songs of the evening had the artists jumping on and off the stage. They performed Jully Black’s rousing and fiery song, “Seven day Fool” We continued with the Alanis School of solid songwriting with, “We Learn”. For the finale, everyone piled onto to the stage and finished the evening climbing into a “Big Yellow Taxi”. It was a real blast watching the female singers belting out this classic from Joni Mitchell. I think each of them cracked that fabulous laugh at the end of the song.

This was a true and proud moment for Canada right before Canada Day. Continue to follow Michael Occhipinti because he puts together these kinds of shows at Hugh’s Room every few months. If you asked me why Michael puts on these unique shows, I would speculate that he is an artist with a deep desire to play with as many excellent artists as he can. If there is any truth to this, I wish him well, because we get to benefit from these one-of-a-kind shows.

Here are artists having fun: