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Great Big Sea

I’ve been a raving fangirl for Great Big Sea from Newfoundland since I discovered them in 2000. And I post about them a LOT.

Great Big Sea, Music

Bring out your Great Big Sea videos!

People, I am experiencing a potentially life-changing event here. I ain’t up to GBS levels of fangirling on Le Vent du Nord quite yet, but those lads from Quebec now very well and thoroughly have my attention, and it’s very significant that at an earlier point today, the number of LVN fan videos I’d added to my YouTube playlist had in fact outnumbered the Great Big Sea videos!

And that, my friends, is pure crazytalk. The lovely Monsieur Beaudry is laying down a very, very compelling case. But this is THE HONOR OF THE DOYLE at stake here. So I put out a call on Twitter and Facebook and Google Plus for people to hit me with their favorite GBS vids on YouTube–and I now repeat that call here! Link me up with your favorite Great Big Sea vids, people! Bonus points if they’re from shows I actually attended!

Remembering that userinfoangelina_zooma had pointed me at a vid of hers I’d never looked at, I finally looked at that tonight. And I gotta tell you, you have never heard “Cod Liver Oil” until you have heard it performed by Murray Foster. Behold!

And for the record, yes, C minor IS the key of someone who’s been drinking until five-thirty. ;>

August 25, 2011 by
Great Big Sea

Great Big Sea at the Moore in Seattle, 3/12/2011 (Part 3 of 3)

In which our heroine is super-late posting the last bit of the concert writeup from the 12th, she admits! But I beg your indulgence, my fellow GBS fans, for lo, I have been stricken this last week or so with the plague. STRICKEN, I tell you. Handsome and talented as The Doyle is, not even he can make me string coherent thoughts together when I’m in a Sudafed-and-Nyquil-induced coma. And I’m assuming y’all want me to finish this report off with something a bit more substantial than “mmmm Alan is so pretty mmmm”, anyway!

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March 24, 2011 by
Great Big Sea

Great Big Sea at the Moore in Seattle, 3/12/2011 (Part 1 of 3)

This was, hands down, the biggest GBS fan outing I’d arranged in some time. I was juggling communication about it across four different channels–Facebook, Twitter, email, and the OKP–and five, really, if you count anything off-net. (This did, I am embarrassed to admit, make me a little crazy; apologies to those to whom I got more crazy than was warranted, and much gratitude to all as I kept a whole bunch of balls in the air to get the whole shebang going!) It wound up going in three, count ’em, three different waves all across Saturday afternoon and evening.

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March 17, 2011 by
Great Big Sea, Photos

GBS show teaser!

The obligatory Great Big Writeup of Great Big Swoonability is on the way, but I’d like to share this one pic I got during the show. Usually my iPhone’s less than useful for taking photos in an indoor concert situation–since I inevitably wind up with blurred figures in a wash of color and light.

Sometimes, though, it winds up looking really, REALLY cool. Like this pic!

God of Music and Light

God of Music and Light

And some of you may have heard rumors of a Certain Cake. What I’ll say about that right now is that the cake was not indeed a Lie. Stay tuned for more details on that cunning plan and how it was enacted!

March 13, 2011 by
Great Big Sea

T-14 days and counting to VERTICAL MOVEMENT

Two weeks from today, my beloved B’ys will be arriving at the Moore to sing to me!

Well, okay, and userinfomamishka and userinfojennygriffee and userinfotechnoshaman and userinfomaellenkleth and userinfosutures1 and a few thousand other people as well. That’s okay. Because I am a person of STRONG CHARACTER, I will SHARE.

I know several of the usual Seattle suspects will be showing up for this show, too, so if you’re going to be there don’t hesitate to sing out! I and mine are discussing an Eat Dinner at The Night Kitchen Beforehand Plan, but I’m also thinking of coming down early to blow the afternoon in Pike Place and Barnes and Noble. So if anybody wants to meet up for lunch, there’s ample opportunity for that too.

And, of course, consider yourselves warned that I will be ramping up the insufferably bouncy swooniness and singing GBS songs at the top of my lungs for the next two weeks. “Yes yes yes,” I hear you say, “but how is this different from your USUAL demeanor?” Fair point, well argued. The main difference is, I’ll be doing it LOUDER.

February 26, 2011 by
Great Big Sea

I cannot IMAGINE what tipped them off

My latest auto-recommendation email from Amazon is totally to giggle: Folk Songs of Newfoundland, by Alan Mills! Note also this dude has a separate album called We’ll Rant and We’ll Roar: Songs of Newfoundland, too!

Wikipedia informs me that Mr. Mills was best known for popularizing Canadian folk music, and it’s very clear, looking over the track listings for both of these albums, that my beloved B’ys either pulled hard from his songs or else were pulling from the same sources he did! Between these albums, I see a whole bunch of songs that were much, much later covered by GBS:

  • From the B’ys’ very first, self-titled album: “I’se the B’y” and “Great Big Sea”
  • From up and later also, Rant and Roar: “Lukey’s Boat”, and of course, “Rant and Roar”
  • From Turn: “Jack Hinks”
  • From Sea of No Cares: “Feller from Fortune”
  • From the mighty, mighty The Hard and the Easy: “Tickle Cove Pond”, “Harbor Le Cou”, “The Old Polina”

Mr. Mills’ versions are of course much more old school, and a lot more folksy. But damn, it’s weird and fun listening to his earlier versions of these songs. I’m very tempted to get both of these albums, just for the giggle factor of the contrast to GBS’ versions!

And clearly, Amazon ignored the “sexy, bouncy, long-haired bouzouki player” part of “customer’s affection for Newfoundland folk music”, when their auto-recommender code sent me that mail. 😀

December 15, 2010 by