Dream Serenade: Broken Social Scene, Gord Downie, The Barenaked Ladies at Massey Hall

Photos by Massey Hall | Jag Gundu for the Massey Hall archives

The third annual Dream Serenade took place at Massey Hall on Saturday, October 22^nd. This benefit concert is put on by Toronto artist Hayden Desser, and Christie Greyerbiehl. Over the past three years, the event has raised over $125,000. This year, all of the money raised went towards The Beverly School in Toronto. In the past, cash has been put towards making playgrounds for the school, and has set up family relief fund’s. Money from each ticket benefited the school, as well as a silent auction that occurred during the event in which concert-goers could bid on items, which went towards donations.

By complete surprise, the one and only Gord Downie showed up to open the show. He played music from his project , “Secret Path”. This project is inspired by a young boy who passed away while walking on railroad tracks while trying to escape from an Indian Residential School. Essentially, this project is for Canada and the issues that Aboriginal people struggle with; he wants to make people aware and encourage people to donate to The Gord Downie Secret Path Fund.

The night consisted of all Canadian talent, which was incredibly inspiring. It was a true display of the talent Canada has, and how thoughtful Canadian artists were to contribute their time to such an important and overlooked cause.

The Persuasions took the stage incredibly in sync from the moment they began. They perpetuate an amazing stage presence, and are so beyond great at what they do. They kept the audience entertained, as everyone was in awe over their Acapella based band. They had not one instrument- but their own vocals; “We’ve got a rhythm section deep down in our soul”. It is clear how many years they have been performing together as they are one of the most in unison bands I have ever seen perform. To close off their set, they covered U2’S “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, which was so incredibly moving and included the best harmonizing there was throughout their entire set.

Following The Persuasions feel good set, was The Barenaked Ladies. This was a more of an acoustic based performance. As per usual, they had a fun filled set filled with laughter, inclusion, and beautiful music. Lead singer Ed Robertson wasn’t wrong when he said, “I don’t want to be a part of the car ride home of where someone’s significant other talked them into dessert tonight – they’re getting in shit. First date- last date”, in reference to many concert goer’s missing surprise opener Gord Downie. They performed a great performance of “If I had $1,000,000” adding many funny comments throughout making the song even more enjoyable. They engaged with the audience so very well, and closed their set with a mashup of multiple hit songs such as “Work” by Rihanna, “Love Yourself” by Justin Bieber, “Hotline Bling” by Drake, along with some choreographed dancing.

Following intermission was Hayden, which was a very heartfelt set. The highlight of his performance was when he performed “Old Dreams”, which included only him and a piano. This was a more intimate performance of the song, as the song normally contains more instrumentation. He explained how this was the first song he wrote after his daughter was born, and it took him several months to even be able to express himself. Massey Hall was completely silent, and it was a truly beautiful moment.

Dan Mangan played a unifying and beautiful set, following Amy Millans fun and first solo performance in 8 years. A highlight of his set was the performance of “Basket”. The song began very calmly, and the guitar became heavier as the intensity of the song increased, as well as the passion within himself. With this being said, my favourite moment was the performance of “So Much For Everyone”. He encouraged the entire audience to harmonize which didn’t work at first- but he did not give up. Within a few minutes, basically the entire audience of Massey Hall was singing along. It was an incredibly beautiful, empowering, and inspiring performance.

To close the show, Broken Social Scene played their Massey Hall debut. The show began with Kevin Drew saying “When we wrote this song I wondered if we ever would play it in Massey Hall so that’s why we are now, were Broken Social Scene and we still love you and always will.”, then they played a breath-taking performance of “Lover’s Spit” which featured a countless amount of artists, and Feist and Drew dancing together, adding to the beautiful vibe that was created. This set was filled with so much passion, dedication, love, and talent. It was so empowering to see such a large group of Canadian artists create such beautiful sound in a live setting, so unified.

Overall, this concert was inspiring. Between the amount of Canadian artists there were, the cause it was for, the video’s played of children who attended the school, and even hearing a family of one of the children who attend The Beverley School gasp with excitement because their son was featured in the video, I left feeling different- in a good way.