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On November 12th, 2017 I saw one of the world’s great soundsmiths, Mr. Daniel Lanois at a hometown show in Gatineau, Quebec.
(As Lanois put it: “People ask where I come from and I have to say “(H)’ull.” “Gatineau” sounds so much better.”)
The show was at the Salle Odyssée across the river. I had only been in the newish theatre once before, for a so-so show starring the normally sublime Harry Manx. After some brief chatting with friends in the lobby we took our seats.
Funny, I had completely forgotten that I had scored tickets in the front row, stage right. The fact that my ticket read “Row C” tricked me so I was pleasantly surprised to find my view unobstructed and with plenty of leg room taboot.
Daniel come onstage right on time and when he sat at his pedal steel (“My church in a box,” he called it) I realized that I had the single exact very best seat in the house. Lanois was facing me precisely straight-on and there was nothing but a dozen feet of air between all of me and all of he. And all of he started the show by playing a glorious, near-holy solo orchestral hymn on that most angelic of instruments, the pedal steel.
Daniel Lanois plays the instrument in a very unique, guitarish way and it was great to see his oh-so-naturally honest technique up close. He brushed the strings so gently you would almost think they would be inaudible but not a note was lost; every sonic strum clearly resonated throughout the room, no matter how subtle. His chords rang deep and wide, stopping for silent instants before deconstructing into single note lines that were crisp, loud, and clear.
It was a pity that he only played one solo piece on the pedal steel. Matter of fact, I think he only played it once more with the band; the rest of the show he played the guitar and a crazy mixing board*.
When the band (his long-time bass player Jim Wilson, a young Movembered drummer, a fiddle player from New Brunswick and Dangerous Wayne Lorenz – more on him in a moment) joined Dan onstage it was for a string of his monster hits, each of which included plenty of Lanois’ perfect, Anglo-accented French. “Don’t worry,” he said of his French: “I’m the real deal.”
He’s the real deal with the music stuff too. Being one of the world’s great record producers means you hear things most people don’t hear. Daniel Lanois’ ears are different (like, say, Gary Larson’s funnybone is different), plus he can sing and he has a great sense of melody. When his songwriting, his delivery, and his sonic genius collide the guy’s contribution to the world of organized sound takes on a positively mystical quality.
Which brings me to Dangerous Wayne Lorenz. With no introduction or explanation whatsoever, this long-haired tie-dyed freaky dude whose job seemed to be to dance and wave his arms in rough synchronicity with the music stepped onto the stage. At first he seemed to to be mostly filling the role of a guitar tech (who looked at broken strings like they were poisonous snakes) with just a smidgen of freaky dancing thrown in, but as the show went on his teching gave way almost entirely to his freaky dancing.
To be honest, I figured that he was Daniel’s protégé, leaning in close to his sensei and even twiddling the occasional knob while Lanois was playing the mixing board, and a quick google search when I got home proved that he is in fact Daniel Lanois’ assistant engineer down in New Orleans.
Dangerous Wayne also seemed to be triggering the very clever and trippy videos that played behind the band. Each one used a different visual trick to turn a mundane black and white video into something really engaging. Though try as they might, the videos could hardly compete with Danger.
It frankly says a lot (of good things) about Lanois that he had such a wacky – and again, unexplained – guy in tow for the tour.
Eventually Lanois even started taking requests and when he had finally covered all of the bases and played everything any of us could name he bid us bon soir and was gone. It was an epicly wonderful night of breathless music on a mellow Springsteenesque level, made even more special (as if that were somehow possible) by my epicly great seat in the front row.
So great was my spot up front that during the one full-band song that Daniel played pedal steel on I could clearly hear him call out the chords to the bass player. “G…C…G…D…Elephant flat…”
Huh? What? Did he just say “elephant flat”?
And then it came up again, except the second time it came up it was no longer flat, just “elephant” (clearly naturalized). And there was no chuckling, no furled eyebrows, just “elephant”, as normal as saying D or C or G. I’m utterly convinced that Daniel Lanois calls one of the chords “elephant,” instead of it’s normal name and I bet you dollars to doughnuts that chord is B.
(The chord names B, C, D, E, and G all rhyme and when you call one of them across a noisy stage it’s easy to hear the wrong thing, so it makes sense to come up with a more distinct name for one or two chords. The easiest ones to mishear are B and D, and since Lanois called out D as one of the chords I’m guessing “elephant” is B. As a matter of fact I think I might start using that one myself.)
Anyway, it was just a surreally great show all around, and I’m glad to note that there was definitely an elephant in the room, but it turned out to be not Dangerous.
*What I thought early in the show was a Moog-like synthesizer was in fact not a keyboard at all, but rather a short mixing console that Lanois played like a keyboard, riding knobs and faders to manipulate looping sound bytes into the more electronic jams of the night. If you’ve ever heard Neil Young’s Le Noise you’ll hear Daniel Lanois doing precisely what I’m talking about to Neil’s guitar (one that Dan built specifically for Neil; remember, the dude’s a sonic master chef).
Todd Man Out 