"Hello my friends, I feel so happy to be back," Ferron sang to a packed audience at The Club on Oct. 28.
The ex-Vancouverite folk performer proved to be sure-footed as ever for this Gibsons concert, even after an eight-year recording hiatus. She offered her familiar songs interwoven with selections from her new CD, Turning Into Beautiful. During the two-hour concert, many old friends and fans in the audience happily reacquainted themselves with her music.
Ferron has always been a poetic and accomplished songwriter, and the tunes she played from the new album stood up well alongside the favourites from her previous albums. She remains a master at marrying the melancholy with a message of hope and never shies from expressing deep emotion. Ferron takes the personal and private to a public level and in doing so touches her audience in a profound and loving way. She was ably backed by her long time band members, Shelley Jennings, Darryl Havers, Donnie Benedictson and Harvey Kostenchuk. Ferron sang of love, loss, justice and fury. The enthralled audience clapped and sang along.
Between songs, Ferron demonstrated a finely-honed sense of humour. She had the audience in stitches with her comments on the state of our world.
Underlying that, we never lost sight of the determination and very real rage that fuels her song writing.
Two standing ovations brought a first encore and then an unexpected twist. Ferron called the Coast's own Blaine Dunaway up from the audience to join the band, playing his violin as he had 30 years before, on the recording of her song Testimony. The air was electric during this second encore piece and many eyes were filled with tears.
As Ferron put it, music is something we "forever understand." The audience left The Club on Friday night knowing that some things are never lost.
