Vance Joy at the Danforth Music Hall

Photos by Katrina Lat

Australian singer-songwriter Vance Joy made one of his final stops during the last stretch of his “Lay It On Me” tour at the Danforth Music Hall on Thursday, October 26^th.

If you caught him at any festivals this Summer, the stage set up was the exact same- simple lighting. Although the lighting set-up was simple, it was easier to appreciate because the venue was dark, as opposed to daylight.

He opened the show strong with “Fire and the Flood”, and went on to play more crowd favourites such as “Red Eye”, “Snaggletooth”, “Georgia”, “Lay It on Me”, and of course “Riptide” and “Mess is Mine”.

Although he has been criticized in the past for “not doing much” on stage, I have to disagree with those critiques. With this kind of music, I don’t really see what else he is even supposed to do, its not like he’s going to dance around the stage because that’s just not the kind of music or show it is. Sure he just stands there and plays his guitar, but at-least his passion is visible and his presence is charming. This isn’t a high production show, but there are aspects that make this show great. He has a full band including brass and unique lighting to go with the vibe of each track. This show is easy to get lost in.

Another enjoyable aspect to the show is how he pretty much explains the back-story to every song before playing. For instance, before he played “Call if you Need Me” he spoke about how he wrote this song when he was sitting around doing nothing at all, and it just influenced this song as he sat around and began to miss someone close to him

“Riptide” was slightly rushed. It was still performed very well in terms of vocals and instrumentals and crowd response was great, but the tempo was much faster, which took away from the beauty of the song- I wasn’t able to take it in as much.

Overall, this was a great show. He played some new tracks, some old favourites, and it was a sold-out crowd.