Hugh’s Room
The New Hugh’s Room has now been on Broadview Ave for about two years now and are constantly improving the building and bringing in high quality acts. They have mixed up well known international acts with well deserving local artists who want to play in a quality music hall.
Dr Draw
For two years now Dr Draw has been nearly the final act of the year. He is the perfect artist to finish off the year with. This is the high you want to seep into your soul as you prepare yourself for the year ahead.
When he gets on stage he conjures up the little Tasmanian devil in him. His trance like state takes over and his quantum field draws you into his beautiful world of chaos. (Did you like the way I said draws you in?)
By the time he reaches his third song, I begin to think they may be the best show I’ve seen him do. It becomes very apparent when he slides into his song, “The Chase”. It is utter madness that infects your senses and that hypnotic calling, pulls you away from the reality of the wet weather outside. You are now riding the intense waves of a madman that has jumped on your surf board.
He lightened that impassioned load and brought back some fun with “Disco Monkey”. The moody lighting added to the entire mood of the room. It felt like some secret ritual in somewhere tucked in the back of a Manor.
The Doctor raised the energy bar again with his powerful and intense piece called, “Shot of Confidence”. It was like strapping a rocket to your back while you are wearing skates and shooting across a frozen pond.
Christmas Show
Although this show is made up of Dr Draw’s own material he did add a little Christmas spirit to the show by playing songs like, Little Drummer Boy. By the second set he brought on board his friend Scott Jackson to create some improvisational beat boxing to the evening. He ran through more Christmas tunes like, Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, Frosty the Snowman and White Christmas.
His Guests
His guest Scott Jackson is the premiere Canadian Beat Boxing champion. He has been playing with Dr Draw for 9 years and when they get together they love to just improvise and see where they go. In this case, they ran through a ton of Rock and Roll classic songs. They flew through them so quickly I couldn’t write them down fast enough.
I did hear moments like Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones and the more modern favourite, Six Nation Army by the White Stripes.
He also brought on a sax player named Andriy Hedzyk or what he is better known as “Fire Sax”. Well this guy comes out and just burns the place down with his sound as well as his visual. You see when this guy plays; he blows so hard that fire will erupt out of his saxophone. So between the swirling dervish of Dr Draw, the beat boxer with endless sounds and ideas and a guy who could set your hair on fire, this show is simply spectacular.
The Doctor is in
Dr Draw puts on a show so well, I forget I am suppose to be there to photograph it. I am truly inside a mesmerizing world of emotional sound. This was very apparent when he dedicated a song to a close friend who passed away this past year. His name was Don and his favourite song is called, “Alexandria”. There was a moment where Dr Draw did a solo for about a minute. Near the end of the solo, I realized the entire time I forgot to breathe.
As we neared the end, he brought the show to a spiritual level with, “Hallejuah”, as he walked around Hugh’s Room greeting his audience with a true intimate moment.
The show came to a fantastic conclusion with all his guests on stage playing their hearts out with all their crazy energy.
Final Note
I had to put this article up today because tomorrow I was going to add another year end article called the Top Ten Concerts of 2025. Well we are still in the year 2025, and now I have to add one more to my list. Damn you Dr Draw for adding more work to my schedule.
This show I felt was a stepping stone towards something bigger. Between the band bringing in more lighting and asking top end player to share the stage with him, I feel he could do this again next year but in a larger venue. That is just my humble opinion.
One Hot Show:
Here is a list of Instagram pages so you can discover all these artists. Do a dive on them and you may find yourself going to more shows next year.
www.instagram.com/firesaxophonist/
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