Upstairs at the Pilot

For the past year the Pilot has opened upstairs to live music. It has been slowly growing over the past year as they tried out many new acts to fill the room. I sat in that room many times watching quality acts putting out their best to try and garner more attention and make this space a haven for music lovers. Lately this space is gathering more people and fulfilling its destiny to be the next hotspot in the city for quality acts.

Mike Murray

I have been following Mike Murray like an amateur stalker with no intent to kill. He is always onto a new project and I am curious about all of them. I have seen him play with another talented guitar player, Yiannis Kapoulas. I have seen him in the jazz fusion band, One Word. He has played with a legendary guitarist from Pakistan named Mikaal Husan. Now, here he is back at the packed Pilot paying tribute to his favourite guitarist, Jeff Beck.

What makes Mike Murray a Toronto treasure, is that he is one of the best guitar players I have seen in Toronto, and I have seen tons of musicians. Mike also has a very generous side to him. He has a job as a music teacher at Centennial College. This gives Mike some creative license.  On this night he decided to bring two of his students to join him on stage. It was so much fun watching these two take his cues and try out some of their personal chops on stage. Becoming a live performer takes guts and the openness to express yourself to the best of your ability. Watching Kenji Abeta and Natalie Baldocchi go into some deep solos was both exciting and nerve racking for both of them as well as the audience. We wanted to make sure we supported them and hope they make the cut to come out more often and share their growing talent with us.

Jeff Beck

Anyone who know Jeff Beck’s music know there are not many musicians ready to take this on live. Well, that is why we have Mike, he and the band will take on any challenge. His band consists of:

Dan Klas, the freight train that pushes this train. (Drums)

Jack James Lemaire, the one who keeps everybody playing on time while scrambling out his own special tricks. (Bass)

Giovanni Campenelli who attacks his tinkling with a fever that keeps his fingers on fire. (Keyboards)

He also brought two singers with him to sing the Rod Stewart parts. Sam Lewis sang like a man possessed as he pushed the limits of songs like- “Shapes of Things” and “Ain’t Superstitious”.

Kristine Bishop who came in near the end and did an amazing job on “People get Ready”.

It became very clear that this band loves Jeff Beck as much as the audience. Mike would go into deep stories about his knowledge about Jeff and then test the audience who knew the answer to his questions. There was always someone who knew the answer.

The Show

For Jeff Beck fans, a show like this only happens about once a year. So stay tuned for the next one. It will probably be in our events calendar, so stay connected to us.

The show was a well-balanced diet of Jeff’s hit songs as well as some deep cuts. The band played material from his entire collection.

By the time the band went into their second song, I noticed Mike looking extra confident as his was hitting those riffs with absolute delight like he was attacking a perfectly cooked meal and presented it in front of a starving man.

As Mike was figuring out which album was an audience favourite, I got excited when he mentioned, “Wired”. I got even more excited when he went deep and played, “Come Dancing”.

Things got interesting as he played, “Nadia”, from his album, “You had it coming”. The level of feeling nervous and the amount of concentration in Mike face became apparent. You could see him loosing himself in this solo, and that is what you need to approach music when playing live.

Another fine moment was when he played what he considered his favourite song to play,” Angel Footsteps”. Mike said several times that a particular song was his favourite, throughout the evening. I have the same thing with one of my favourite bands, Yes. I just can’t choose one.

A Spinal Tap moment

One of the reasons I love live music are those unexpected moments of mini disasters and how the band can handle them. Dan Klas was beginning to go into one of his octopus’ drum solos, where you could see eight arms flying around the drum kit. With his massive arm muscles, he slammed his cymbal so hard that it flew off. So, with one hand still going for the solo as he reached down and grabbed the renegade cymbal and put it back on the stand as he ramped up his solo to and absolutely insane speed with his hulking character bashed the hell out of that cymbal. He did manage to bash it off its pinnacle right at the end of the song. Spinal Tap would definitely hire this guy to be their next drummer. The only problem is he would probably die in some kind of bizarre drum solo.

The band did get called on for one more encore, and they decided to do Jeff beck’s least favourite song to play: Freeway jam.

The Amazing Players that love Jeff Beck:

Onto the Future

At the end of the show, Mike let the audience know that he will have new music out by next year. This will be his sophomore record. I would highly recommend his debut CD- Horizon as a starting point to a guitar player who will be an important part of the Toronto Tapestry of creative music. I would like to him play many more times at the Pilot. This room and his music just seem to be a perfect fit for each other.

Here is Mike’s Instgram account- www.instagram.com/mikemurrayguitar/

Or buy his music at Bandcamp- Music | Mike Murray