Happiness Project's Live Triumph

If you've heard Charles Spearin's Happiness Project, you already know it's unlike anything you've listened to before. Now picture the project brought to life. It's something only super-musical humans can do, and Spearin and his band did it. The results were astounding.

If you haven't heard the album, you'll be downloading that sucker faster than you can say "Broken Social Scene and Do Make Say Think" after reading this review.

Spearin and his eight-piece band's first of two nights at the glowingly warm Music Gallery began with a small and delicate set from the luminous Laura Barrett. She played songs from her latest album, Victory Garden, to the attentive audience. She was accompanied by a violin player, a very tall xylophone/banjo player, a sweet and unpolished back-up singer (who read the lyrics from a little book) and several different types of kalimbas.

Barrett, to me, always seems like an elementary school teacher sitting down to sing to her class. She's kind and animated, but, instead of telling stories that the kids know or understand, she sings about laser beams, caffeine and carotene. Despite the effed up storytelling, Barrett captured the audience's full attention, especially when she moved to the piano.

Spearin's musical army wandered to the front of the church and placed themselves among the horns, harps, pedals, guitars, drums and violin shortly thereafter.

Spearin stood centre stage in his socks, sporting a hearty moustache, and said hello. He explained that The Happiness Project was something he never thought would leave his living room, and went on to talk about happiness and how he has become an expert on it. His main point was that happiness comes from the unexpected — something this show was filled with.

The audience featured many of the same neighbours from Spearin's Koreatown 'hood who are heard talking on the album, and there was a feeling of community in the air, which added to the show's fuzzy feelings.

The band started with a loop of Spearin saying "There are melodies everywhere," at which point every instrument on stage introduced itself in unison.

Then the group jumped into album opener (and highlight) "Mrs. Morris." Spearin chopped and looped the recording of Mrs. Morris' speech, manipulating a dozen pedals in front of him as the band slowly started to play along with her spoken intonations.

This is how the songs were brought to life. Though it was heavily rehearsed (it had to be in order to achieve the amazing accuracy of this show), the results were stunning. A sample of one neighbour who was able to hear for the first time at age 31 was intricately brought to life with the piano and then eventually by the whole band.

Not only were the musicians able to play to speech patterns note-for-note, they conveyed the emotions that each speaker felt while talking. The very attentive, appreciative and amazed audience soon realized they were in the presence of masters. To be able to sway in and out of looped speech and create gloriously atmospheric songs effortlessly was something to behold.

Spearin and company continued to surprise onlookers with a seven-piece horn explosion ("Vittoria") and two band member solos, one of which was a tear-jerking classical trumpet piece. The show concluded perfectly with Spearin eventually looping the entire band into a "Mrs. Morris" outro.

A standing ovation was the only expected moment of the evening.