Photos and a review of The Grapes of Wrath at Neat Cafe

[Ross MacDonald was there for us. – AC]

After performing a few concerts in the GTA with the full band, Tom and Kevin from The Grapes of Wrath made a stop at Neat Coffee Shop in Eastern Ontario for three intimate acoustic shows. A Journal of Musical Things was there for the third and final night, and if there was one theme for the night, it was harmonies.

It was a relatively informal affair, with lots of interaction with the sold-out crowd. Right from the beginning Kevin stated: “There is no set list, we’re just going to wing it!”

It was just the two singers, with acoustic-electric guitars, and sometimes a harmonica. There was no stomp box, but Tom was banging his boot on the stage for a few of the songs.

The second song of the evening was their hit song ‘You Might Be Right’, which had everyone singing along. It’s great to get the audience on your side early, and with all the personal stories from throughout their years, it felt like a night of catching up with a couple of long-lost friends.

Kevin recounted how he came up with one of their songs: “One day at college my girlfriend was quite sad and crying so some guy went to console her. He consoled her back at his place. So after that my girlfriend and I had to have the breakup conversation. We drove up the hill overlooking Kelowna and while we were having the talk, we kept hearing the rifle range: bang bang. Tom was working at the rifle range; he could have been head trap boy.”

Tom continued: “My mom’s boyfriend ran the range and got me a joy working in the bunker shooting out clay pigeons. There were a bunch of bees so i put up the emergency flag to stop, but it fell down so I stuck my head out to pick it up and someone at the firing line yelled ’get back in the bunker trap boy!!’ So I wound up quitting that job.”

Kevin concluded: “this led to ‘The Most’ off our Now And Again record.”

“We wrote our first (self-titled) EP and then signed to Nettwerk records in Vancouver. We were the third band after Moev and Skinny Puppy. We left Kelowna and headed to the big city of Vancouver to record our second LP Treehouse.” This led to another hit single, ‘Backwards Town’. With Tom on harmonica and playing his acoustic guitar, while Kevin was playing lead on his hollow-body Godin, it was musical perfection. And then the beautiful vocal harmonies began. They didn’t need any reverb, it was a nice clean sound, but the two guitars and voices filled the hall. Kevin and Tom sounded just like they did in the 80s and 90s.

Kevin and Tom continued to captivate the audience throughout the night. Between most songs they would recount stories of past girlfriends and tours that were influences on the songwriting. And by the way, Kevin mentioned a few times that he was trying to sell his Godin guitar (I really wish I had some disposable income, it had beautiful tone).

Tom told the story of how he came up with the single ‘What Was Going Through My Head’. “We went to a Pink Floyd concert and we were backstage where there was a big bowl of magic mushrooms. I took about four handfuls!” Kevin interjected “I had one, one mushroom.” Tom continued “I started to freak out, I thought I was going to die. I ran back to our hotel room, it was right beside and overlooking the stadium. All the lights and sounds of the concert were really freaking me out, I thought that I might die.”

Fortunately he did not, and we got another beautiful hit single from this experience.

Tom showed appreciation for the third sold-out show at Neat (almost a mini residency): “Thank you for coming out. This song is dedicated to all of you, ‘Good to See You’.”

And one more story.

“Because of our successes, for our album Now And Again we had a budget. We asked John Paul Jones, for that little band Led Zeppelin, to arrange strings for some songs. He listened and suggested strings for four songs. We said no, not those songs. We turned down John Paul Jones for ‘Do You Want To Tell Me?’ from the album Now And Again, our first platinum album.”

The depth and beauty of Tom and Kevin’s harmonies cannot be overstated. Their melodies filled the century-old schoolhouse and left everyone hanging off each note. Never was a standing ovation more deserved.