For fans of 1990s Canadian alternative rock, a joint tour between I Mother Earth and The Tea Party was already a tempting offer. There was a delicious extra for a handful of lucky people at the Théâtre Capitole on Monday evening.
An hour before the official start of this coast-to-coast journey, a few dozen privileged people were able to attend a short acoustic performance that brought together the musicians of the two groups.
On the menu: well-received covers by Stevie Wonder (Superstition), Eddie Vedder (Hard Sun), U2 (I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For), the Rolling Stones (Sympathy For The Devil) and a demonstration of the Complicity that seems to exist between these two leading groups in the country’s alternative scene.
It took seeing singers Jeff Martin and Edwin teasing each other to realize that the risk of an ego war marring this tour appears to be very low.
Jeff Martin and Edwin, the singers of The Tea Party and I Mother Earth, covered some rock classics in acoustic versions at the beginning of the evening.
The Tea Party: even more fun
During the main program, the same Jeff Martin was a standout leader of the Tea Party concert and clearly the favorite of the audience attending this alternative rock fest.
Like Dave Grohl, the singer and guitarist pulled the audience along by playing the humor card and trying to express himself in French. “Sing,” he asked several times, effortlessly getting the audience to join in.
We’ve also established that it’s not Martin, Stuart Chatwood and Jeff Burrows’ business to stupidly cover the songs as they appear on the albums. To fill their allotted hour and a half, the trio only needed eight songs, all hits from the 1990s, which they happily stretched out, deftly avoiding the trap of complacency.
The menu was plentiful. The soaring opening of “The River,” adorned with a few lines from Sober, Tool and the Middle Eastern rhythms of “The Bazaar,” perfectly paved the way for some intense psychopomp.
The Tea Party repeated the nostalgic insert pass by playing U2’s “With or Without You” almost in its entirety during Heaven’s Coming Down.
“Temptation” and “Sister Awake” also thrilled the audience, who had no major omissions to complain about despite the small number of program titles.
I Mother Earth: seamless reunion
All of this came on the heels of a rare event, an I Mother Earth concert in Quebec. The last visit? In 1998, at the end of a decade in which the trio had visited the Auteuil bar several times.
Edwin, from “I Mother Earth,” Monday, at the Théâtre Capitole. Photo Pascal Huot/QMI Agency
This perhaps explains why a large portion of the audience, clearly unfamiliar with their repertoire, preferred to chat rather than listen to their performance, even though it was inspired by the Ontarians.
Even if notable tracks from the album Dig were ignored (why did you put Levitate and So Gently We Go aside?), you can hardly blame them: their strong rock, spiced with Latin percussion and instrumental flights, has aged well and has been with delivered an intensity that was beautiful to watch.
They even saved the best for last. One after the other, “One More Astronaut” and “Rain Will Fall” ensured an explosive end to this reunion.