Hawksley Workman with Symphony Nova Scotia
Rebecca Cohn, Halifax, NS
SET LIST
Autumn’s Here (with symphony) arranged by Keith Power
Song for Sarah Jane (with symphony) arranged by David Christensen
Your Beauty Must be Rubbing Off (Hawksley and Lonely)
Ice Age (Hawksley and Lonely)
Goodbye to Radio (with symphony) arranged by Jesse Zubot
Smoke Baby (Hawksley and Lonely)
Warhol’s portrait of Gretzky (with symphony) arranged by David Christensen
INTERMISSION
Oh You Delicate Heart (with symphony) arranged by Keith Power
A House or Maybe a Boat (with symphony) arranged by Rebecca Pellett
Striptease (Hawksley and Lonely)
Tarantulove (Hawksley and Lonely)
No More Named Johnny (with symphony) arranged by Jesse Zubot
You, Me and the Weather (Hawksley and Lonely)
No Beginning No End (with symphony) arranged by Keith Power
ENCORE
Don’t Be Crushed
I’ve seen Hawksley Workman perform eight times. That has included a wide variety of different shows – solo; all acoustic, with just him and Lonely; with the original Wolves; in a hole-in-the-wall bar in Sydney; with the interesting band that he put together in 2008, where part of the show involved playing miniature instruments.
In October, I saw Hawksley in his first-ever orchestral collaboration, with Symphony Nova Scotia. The set was about evenly split between songs performed with the symphony and those that Hawksley performed with Mr. Lonely (Todd Lumley), his longtime piano player.
It was the third time that I had seen Hawksley at the Cohn. It’s a great venue for him. The last show of his that was there, close to two years ago, is my favourite Hawksley live show I’ve seen. He played for three solid hours, did three encores. It was sublime.
The show I saw with SNS was on par, but I’m rating it lower because of the duration of the show. Which I suspect was partially due to the SNS collaboration. The times I’ve seen HW in Halifax, he would seemingly play all night if we demanded. This show, there was a one song encore of HW and Lonely.
He started out with a beautiful version of ‘Autumn’s Here’ with SNS, before talking about checking out the farmers’ market and eating at the Wooden Monkey, before launching into ‘Song for Sarah Jane.’
Then Hawksley talked about what happened the previous night. From talking to someone who was there, it seems that he made a mistake at the beginning of a song, I believe it was Delicate Heart, and made everyone start over. The person I talked to made it sound like it seemed to shake Hawksley’s confidence a bit. I’ve never seen that of him, but I can imagine if you’re someone who is really accustomed to doing what you do, a new situation may be challenging. Knowing all this, his talk of “I see the exit signs, like beacons for my terribleness. You suck, we go to work,” made me feel badly for him. But I got over that with the ovations we gave him.
Then he and Lonely played ‘Your Beauty Must Be Rubbing Off.’
There were random “Hawksley-isms,” he is supremely quotable.
“I’m trying to get a gig as a waterbottlist,” he said between songs, after blowing into his water bottle.
“On a Saturday night, you should be practising with the choir for church tomorrow
It was also really cool watching how the other musicians onstage responded to him when they weren’t playing. Some of them were very obviously taken with him, especially his voice.
He again broke out the menthol Fishermen’s Friends prior to hitting the really high notes, which is also my preferred cough drop. I’ve been known to chain drop them while covering court.
The performance of Oh You Delicate Heart was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard in a live venue.
More Hawksleyisms:
“I would walk to corner, get muffin the size of your head. I used to judge the world based on its muffins. Muffins are poorly named, if it was more sophisticated it might mean more to us.”
There were two standing ovations, which is one less than his last Cohn performance. It was the best show I saw in 2011.
