Posted by On February 1st, 2025 m’lady and I made the drive into Town to see…you guessed it: Big Space playing at Erin’s Pub.
I know, I know, it seems like every time I went to see a show in this era I was either 1) out-of-province, or 2) seeing Big Space. The reasons for this are twofold (of course, and at least). First of all, when I leave the province it is my habit to make it a priority to find live music, and I must say that I generally succeed. The reason for this is because I love live music, and the live music that I love doesn’t come to Newfoundland very often. Secondly, there is some music that I love right here in my new-ish home province, and that music is called Big Space. Oh sure, I like a few other Townie bands (like Kelly McMichael, The Burning Hell, and – as of February 1st, 2025 – High & Lonesome), but only Big Space draws me and m’lady in enough for us to drive two-and-a-half hours (return) and to (usually) book a room*.
And no wonder! The instrumental trio is blatantly jazz-fusion and yet they somehow still land somewhere between Sisters Euclid and nero, which is nothing but plus, plus, and plus as far as I’m concerned, and luckily m’lady wholeheartedly agrees. And this time there was an opening act that almost completely stole my attention.
High & Lonesome was a bluegrass act and I must admit I wasn’t expecting to be blown away. Nothing against the musicianship in Newfoundland – not even a little – but as a guy who fell in love with the genre whilst surrounded by seriously good Ottawa Valley bluegrass-ish musicians, well, I was thinking that the I’s the By’s pickers ’round St. John’s might be struggling to keep up but man, was I wrong! High & Lonesome’s frontman was a really good mandolin player with a wonderfully booming voice, the fiddle player was also great as was the overly shy guitar player, and when the bass player stepped up to sing a tune in his high falsetto he nearly stole the set.
And even better, this was just a stripped down version of the group; normally High & Lonesome features six or seven players! I will definitely make a point of seeing them again. Might even get a hotel room.
But as good as the opening act was, the main feature was still Big Space, and deservedly so. These guys are just so damn good – both individually and as a group – that I simply cannot help being enthralled. And by this time I was familiar enough with their material to notice that I wasn’t at all familiar with most of the material; they were playing lots of new stuff and it was all just as great as their old stuff. My buddy (and the bass player in my band) joined us for his third Big Space show and he agreed that they are, and remain, monsters.
And while sleepy-time fatigue (rather than double Jack and Cokes) had me seeing double by the end of the night the playing was indeed monstrous enough to keep this old man riveted and shaking his head in wonder right up ’til and including the last note. After which m’lady and I bee-lined it straight up the nearly-adjacent staircase and climbed to our cheap-and convenient budget hotel room.
*At this point m’lady’s fancy-pants Hilton Rewards points were starting to run a little thin so this time we booked ourselves into the decidedly not fancy-pants Duckworth Inn for the bargain-basement price of just $70. And while that contributes to a somewhat expensive night out, at the time I was abstaining from alcohol so my lack of bar bill pretty much took care of the hotel cost.
Todd Man Out 