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A couple weeks ago, I got the chance to be part of something that felt very special, and very Winnipeg.
Singer/songwriters John K. Samson Fellows (of The Weakerthans) and Christine Fellows put on a series of concerts at the end of September at the parish hall at St. George’s Anglican Church. For the performance I attended, you could only get tickets via a lottery system, and I was actually not successful; I got mine at the last minute when a friend could no longer go.
It was such a special evening and unlike any other gig I’ve been to, and I’ve been to many gigs. There were cookies and non-alcoholic beverages. There were craft supplies and lots of places to sit. Samson Fellows led a paper-bird folding demonstration from the stage. There was a little poetry project from Winnipeg poet laureate Jennifer Still (more on that in next week’s paper). The lighting was soft and warm. It was like being in a living room with a hundred other people who knew exactly when to sing during Sun In An Empty Room.
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Even the lottery system felt nicer than the Ticketmaster bot roulette we’re usually forced to play.
Samson Fellows played two sets of solo and Weakerthans songs, including, devastatingly, the Virtute the Cat trilogy, in full, which led to me having a surprising moment of public crying.
If you don’t know, Virtute is a cat who tries to get his struggling owner out of a dark place (A Plea from a Cat Named Virtute), realizes she can’t and runs away (Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure), and then dies (Virtute at Rest). The song in which Virtute dies is not the saddest to me; the single most destroying lyric is in the second song of the trilogy: “But I can’t remember the sound that you found for me/I can’t remember the sound that you found for me/I can’t remember the sound.” Some people interpret the “sound” as a cutesy here-kitty vocalization, but I’ve always read it as she can’t remember her name.
(Obviously, I was thinking about my dog Samson, who died a year ago this week and who was named after John K. Samson Fellows. I was also thinking about my new dog Phoebe and how sad it would be if she forgot the sound that we found for her. “Phoebe” is the sound the chickadees in our cedars make, too: fee-bee, fee-bee.)
But I also don’t know if I would have been moved to tears in a different environment. There was something about that specific alchemy of coziness and intimacy that allowed me to be fully present. Samson Fellows requested that no one record the show and you know what? No one did. I didn’t see a single soul on their phones, save for a couple taking a quick sneaky pic.
I don’t know if these kinds of shows are what’s next for concerts — it’s tremendously labour-intensive for the artists themselves; Christine Fellows baked over a thousand cookies! — but I do love the trend towards these kinds of smaller shows. The last time I saw Samson Fellows perform was at a house concert, as it happens, at Stu Reid’s house, a.k.a. the Studome.
What I do know is that community connection feels really good right now. There’s so much going in the world, so much horror being blasted into our faces all day long via our phones. There were so many years, not so long ago, where we couldn’t connect in person at all. This concert felt like an exhale, a respite, a balm, a glimpse of a different way to show up in the world. I’m glad I was able to be there.
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