Saturday evening I had the good fortune of seeing Carli and Julie Kennedy perform for the second musical event in the Evergreen Cultural Centre’s Music on the Grill series. And what a fabulous musical show it was!
However, being a Music on the Grill series, there is also the “grill” part of the show. Yesterday was a perfect day for a lovely evening to sit on the patio at the Evergreen Cultural Centre and enjoy a lovely barbecue put on by Paul Bates of Chefs Catering.
We had our choice of barbecued salmon, chicken breast, or steak. As sides there was a choice of baked beans, potato salad or coleslaw and a corn meal muffin. Quite a beautiful and tasty meal on the deck in the cool evening air.
But enough about the food (have you ever heard me say that?), the main event of the evening was inside the Evergreen with the powerhouse duo of Carli and Julie Kennedy pounding out the tunes – from classical to tango tunes to country-rock hits. These twins, with their drummer (a dead ringer for Justin Trudeau!) and bass player made musical magic last night.
Carli and Julie are twin sisters who have an inspiring, or is it inspired? musical connection. Carli was on vocals and guitar while her sister Julie, also doing vocals, made her violin do things that even Charlie Daniels could not do in his competition with the devil.
It really was extraordinary to see how in-sync these two are musically. When they are singing or duelling with their fiddle or guitar, it is magical. The harmonies were delightful.
As I said, they played quite a range of music – and because I played the violin/fiddle for a short time in my youth, I was quite taken by Julie’s skill with the violin. Julie really could play heart-grabbing classical music and in a heart beat pull her violin bow back to make the violin scream like a wild animal. I loved it.
And this is not to take anything away from Carli who played her guitar like her life depended on it. At one point she was strumming the strings so wildly that I was taken back to the first time I saw Pete Townsend from The Who when he would literally shred his fingers to bloody bits from his violent guitar playing.
Musically, these two were magical.
If I were to offer one piece of advice to the twins it would be that there were awkward quiet moments from the stage when they were tuning their instruments. Knowing that the venue was hot last night and that it was making their violins and guitars out of tune, perhaps they could have the bass player or someone do a little doodling and noodling to keep that eery quiet from filling the theatre. Or maybe while one of the sisters was tuning up the other could tell one of their very charming stories. Of course this is just my unsolicited advice and I know that as they continue to play they will only get better at the entire entertainment package.
Overall, this was a fabulous evening of music and barbecue. The next Music on the Grill event will be on Saturday, August 9th and the musical guest will be Zakiya Hooker, John Lee Hooker’s daughter. Zakiya is another very talented jazzy blues sounding singer-songwriter. Her voice has been described as silky-rich with the perfect balance of sass and soul.
I hope to see you at the final presentation of Music on the Grill!
If you want a little sample of what I am talking about with these musical twins, have a look and listen to this video of them. The song on the video is one of the last songs they played last night.