Toronto should be thankful that James Vincent McMorrow escaped unscathed from an earlier raccoon encounter, stumbling into one of the city’s masked bandits earlier that evening. The Irish musician regaled the sold out crowd with the quick anecdote during his encore – just one of the brief bits of banter we were treated to that night – saying: “I guess, what I’m asking is… Will a raccoon attack you?”
As a frontman, McMorrow is the unlikely sort. His interactions with the crowd were downright adorable: he’s humble; thankful to both the audience and his entire crew of musicians, engineers, and technicians; and appears exceptionally approachable. When you get to the stage in your career where you’re selling out the Danforth Music Hall, this is rare behaviour – especially when you match it up to McMorrow’s obvious musical prowess and power.
Touring January 2014 sophomore album Post Tropical (the follow-up to 2010 debut Early in the Morning,) McMorrow and his backing three-piece band made it all look so easy. Throughout the set – and even during individual songs such as “From the Woods!!” – they switched quickly between softer and heavier material, navigating timbre and instrumental switches with deft hands.
There are obvious Bon Iver references to be made, McMorrow quickly drawing up comparisons to his folk contemporary both on record and in a live capacity. Any void left by the hiatus of Justin Vernon’s project was sure to be found in the set by McMorrow – no doubt the reason why music fans have flocked to the project and were quick to tell the 31-year-old artist they loved him. To McMorrow’s credit, he returned the compliments with all the aforementioned humbleness one would expect, saying: “It is love. I’ve figured it out. You all belong to me now… That’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever said.”
He also called out the audience’s lighters, held aloft during one of the night’s slower numbers. McMorrow noted that it was his first time seeing a lighter raised at his show (a fact I truthfully find hard to believe,) noting: “Sweet lighter guys, that’s so nineties. I feel like R. Kelly or Boyz II Men.”
There were definitely other notes of R&B in his set too, Post Tropical’s “Cavalier” featuring a groove reminiscent of nineties slow jams on which McMorrow’s falsetto reached a huge crescendo mid-way through, then moving the song into more rock-driven territory.
Other set highlights came with Early in the Morning’s “This Old Dark Machine,” the percussion matching McMorrow’s lungpower, and “We Don’t Eat,” another vocally strong song.
McMorrow carries emotion well and delivers it spectacularly. It’s all terribly endearing and he’s much more interesting live than one might expect him to be. It’s nice to see him find success with it all because it’s no doubt deserved – and more importantly he very much appears to appreciate it all.
