Hugh’s Room

If you have been missing Johannes Linstead at the Beaches jazz festival over the last couple of years, you were in luck recently. Hugh’s Room was happy to host his album release party for his latest offering “From Spain to Cuba”. A review of his new music will be up soon ay Blast Toronto.

Hugh’s Room is the perfect place for this event, because you want to have a stellar sound system handling all the delicate textures of Johannes’ acoustic approach to this show. Hugh’s Room has the latest sound equipment to keep your ears very happy. Maybe, that is why the band played “The Happy Song” this evening.

The Show

Johannes started the evening with a little-known fact. He has a piece of his music on the Despicable Me 4 soundtrack. That is what he opened with. It was both a little bouncy and fun with a laid-back feel to it.

He immediately went into another happy song called “Swaying Hands”, where a Wednesday crowd was swaying their hands while sipping on a mid-week cocktail. This is how you want to have a perfect hump day.

Johannes decided it was time to start unleashing his new material, so he started with a piece called, “Firefly”. This was only the second time they played this one live. The sound was that of a flittering being chasing after a moonlight sonata while the fresh country air delivered you to a vintage cottage by a quiet lake.

That is the atmosphere that this band creates: Soundscapes to unravel your tension and get back to a sense of peace. I think the simplest way of saying this is Johannes can treat you to a short and well needed vacation from the outside world. I do believe that is what he and his band are trying to accomplish, hence, the name of his new album, “From Spain to Cuba”.

He was playing to the right crowd, because these people were totally engaged with each piece he performed. How can you tell? Well for such a quiet and playful music, the audience looked for moments to jump in and clap along. This happened several times throughout the show.

The set list was abounding with travel songs that took us around the world. The band sent us to both Spain and Cuba, but we also go to go to Argentina and even Hawaii.  I even took in a little bit of his Santana sound with his piece called, “Cha Cha Chu”.

Another fun piece was called, “7 Monkeys”, where the title of the song came to him in a dream after he spent weeks wracking his brain trying to come up with a name.

Coconut girl felt very young and innocent and the main character seemed to be in her happy place.

The Great Jordini is dedicated to the accordion player Jordan Abraham. If you listen to this carefully you can really pick up on his fun personality.

“Rico” is reggae inspired tune with a Mediterranean vibe that just feels like two joyous people dancing together.

The night finished off well, with a tango. You could feel the spirit of the room practically dancing out the door. This is how you get over a hump day in Toronto.

Johannes at Hugh’s Room:

Stayed tuned because, Blast Toronto will be reviewing his brand-new album, “From Spain to Cuba” for you to read. In the meantime, you can check out his website Johannes Linstead