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Jerry Leger and Lori Yates were on the same bill at Hugh’s Room for the very first time. I spoke with Jerry a couple of weeks before and he was excited to finally be sharing the same stage as her. You can read about this in my October 22^nd article here on Blast.

Well, this double bill sold out Hugh’s Room because people love going out and listening to deep stories. A lot of these are sad stories. This is a room filled with people waiting for their cathartic moments when processing such personal topics.

Lori Yates

Lori Yates started with the evening off with new material from her recent release, “Matador”.  The song had a complacent desperation to it. In fact I would say it was like comfort food for the soul.

I can’t believe I thought that, and Lori turns and says to the audience, “This is like food therapy, and I am eating mint ice cream. The next song contained a very poignant lyric that says, “It’s good to be alive even though it hurts to be alive”. I will take two more scoops as I process that thought for a while.

Lori then introduced the band to us, and admitted this was the first time they ever played on stage together. You could have fooled us Lori, because Cyntia Baba and Ken Kelley played like they have been with you for years.

To continue the show with dreadful themes, up next was a murder ballad. Apparently, there is a ghost named Josephine, and she is being cursed out. Right after that dark tale we move onto songs that seem to show up at only funerals. “What a life”, seems to celebrate life. I don’t why they don’t play it at other events like anniversaries or the birth of a baby. This song should be played at all these important moments.

Lori sticks to the theme and does another funeral song with primal bellowing and sorrow that filled the entire room. It felt like this was the moment you should be paying your dues and change some of the broken parts of yourself.

She finished off the evening with a beautiful tribute to an old closed down club that sat at the corner of College and Dovercourt called the Matador. This really brought back some fond memories of Toronto. And speaking of the past, Lori decided to recite her thoughts of growing up in Toronto.  It was a four-page story about her and her relationship with the music scene of Toronto. This gave rise to an idea that we should have a place to preserve the musical history of Toronto. I have met o few other people who are collecting past memories of our rich musical history. Lori’s story was honest and raw and brought back some of my authentic memories of that past time.

Here are some images from Lori Yates:

Jerry Leger

After a short break, the lights went down and 1950’s diner style music that had a,” David Lynch” uneasiness to it was introducing Jerry Leger to the stage. The band walked on and opened the evening with a haunting piece of joy called, “3 Hours ahead of midnight”.

If I had to describe his music, one thing I would say is his songs seem to come from a place of uneasiness of emotional bartering that you would only find in unsettling backrooms.  His song, “Slow night in Nowhere town”, remind me of that 1950’s small town feel. The overall image has a pleasing picturesque quality with hints of glitches in the matrix that send out a low frequency that all is not right.

Like Lori Yates, the topic of death was not off the table yet. Jerry shared with us a very unique way that he would like to be remembered. A close friend of his runs the Imperial pub downtown. Once Jerry passes away, he would like to be cremated, and his ashes are spread in the fish tank that is the centerpiece of this pub. I guess Jerry really loves this place.

Jerry also shared his love of his Father who loves Hank Williams. This was the music he grew up on. He decided to record an EP of four Hank Williams songs. You could find it at the merch table that evening.

The band rocked out a couple more number before they went back to a very powerful song called, “The Flower and the Dirt”. This song brings heartbreak to a brand new level.

Not all was lost, feeling forlorn because Jerry was so happy to see a bunch of his friends in the audience. He was picking them out one by one and thanking them for coming out. At the end of the day, Hugh’s room was sold out, we felt a lot of deep emotions and we were among friends. Overall, it was a pretty amazing evening. I hope to see these two perform together again. It would even be better if they combined forces and did a couple of their sad songs for us. That is my wish that I am putting out to the Universe.

Here are some images of Jerry Leger: