On the Road Again
Live Reviews:

NORTH BY NORTHEAST 1999
Featuring: Tamara Williamson
June 11, 1999
Bar Code, Toronto, Ontario

Tamara Williamson

First, a little history. Tamara Williamson is a "veddy English gel" who emigrated to Canada, started a band called Why The Sky, then another called Mrs. Torrance — who got signed to a major label, got the big push for their I'm The Bird album, toured, recorded some more, then got unsigned and disbanded.

Willamson is a solo artist these days, modestly recording and touring her songs — now more sadly beautiful than aggressive — using only her voice, an electric guitar, an array of foot-pedals, some echo and reverb. The tape-loop effects of her pedals turns her voice into a choir, her guitar-string-handslap into a rhythm track, and her picking and chording into an orchestral roundabout. (Live, she's ably assisted by Doug Tielli on cello, second guitar and backing vocals.)

If that sounds a little dry, her albums — last year's Nightmare On Queen Street and the brand-new Unconscious Pilot — certainly aren't. And in a live setting, the skill and passion of her music really get the chance to shine.

In front of a very large, attentive and highly supportive crowd, Williamson played her captivating songs to great effect. When her flawless voice hit the repeated "lost power" line in "Everest" — a song inspired by the book Into Thin Air, about an expedition that resulted in six deaths and some triumph up on the mountain — it was one of those musical moments that makes the hair stand up on your neck.

Lest it all seem a bit serious, Williamson lightened up with a real-life song about living for awhile with her 92-year-old grandmother. In a funny but poignant tale, Williamson sang about how her grandma — apparently getting senile — mistakenly cleaned the carpet with bleach, then blamed the resultant holes on Williamson's cat. Ultimately, Tamara decided to take her tabby and leave, and when she sang "Goodbye granny," the sarcastic tone of voice was a hoot, but the bittersweet heart of the song came through nonetheless.

Her best song, though, is the title track from the new CD, "The Unconscious Pilot." It may be the best Oasis song that they haven't written — and it was at least partly created with that intent — but now it's a little more art than pop. She introduced it by saying "it doesn't rock" (like it used to, she might have added), but if she's compressed the coal of her pop-craft into a more fragile diamond, it's a more than fair exchange.

Williamson's music is like something Jane Siberry might have done in her heyday, if she'd had even more balls and an over-the-top echo unit; or Robert Fripp might do if he had the voice of an angel; or Rheostatics sometimes do when they follow their muse to the Great Beyond. It may not "rock," but it gets rooms full of fans clapping, cheering, and shouting for an encore. Not too shabby, for some strikingly original stuff.