Brendan Canning at The Phoenix Concert Theatre

Photographs by Sarah Rix.

“I may have overdone it on that last song”, Brendan Canning said sheepishly after adding a ton of reverb to his song live last night. Canning was interesting because he seemed to be a mad scientist at work seeing what would happen if he pushes that dial or combines those elements. “Holy shit!”, he said,  astounded by the wall of noise he created at the end of the song Vibration Walls. It was just him and two friends on stage opening for Television and he even stated that theres no way he could be the hypeman to introduce Television.  Still, Cannings stripped down set gave us a nice trippy campfire to sit by and enjoy until the main event.

“Do you want The Grateful Dead or Wilco?”, he asked the audience for the final song. According to Canning,  this was his first show as a trio. Much of the concert was dedicated to playing the field and the rest was spent having a good time. With lots of guitar layers and retro songwriting,  it was as though we were at Woodstock listening to a group of fans jam together until the show started. Canning never tried to steal the show but rather he wanted to celebrate it with us. There wasnt a drummer either as apparently they couldn’t open for Television with one: A sacrifice they seemed ok with. Instead time was kept by tambourine, maracas and woodblock. The atmospheres achieved by two guitars and one of these percussive instruments at a time was fairly impressive. Canning seemed a bit unsure as to how his set went despite being thankful. His set ended quickly with him stating “that’s it!”. Don’t worry Canning: you did a peacefully splendid job.