The legendary Canadian singer-songwriter had some help from husband Raine Maida’s band Our Lady Peace, plus a supporting act from her son.
By Nick Krewen
Special to the Star
Chantal Kreviazuk
Three stars (out of 4)
Massey Hall, Toronto
Friday, Nov. 8, 2024
The family that plays together, stays together.
As cliché as that might seem, that was the conceptual thread that ran through Chantal Kreviazuk’s two-and-a-half hour concert at Massey Hall Friday night.
Piano-bound Winnipeg native Kreviazuk is married to Our Lady Peace co-founder and frontman Raine Maida, and while the original connotation was that the show would be dedicated to celebrating 25 years since the release of Colour Moving and Still, her sophomore and one of her bestselling albums, it soon became obvious there was another underlying theme: the importance of family in the equation.
The first tie-in occurred before the headliner stepped onstage: Rowan Maida, the eldest child of the Canadian music power couple, took the first half-hour of the program to deliver his own rambling brand of performance art-or-whatever-the-hell-that-was, playing the occasional forgettable song on piano and projecting a singing voice that was powerful in some spots and noticeably flat in others.
For the entirety of his freewheeling spot, the 20-year-old didn’t bother dispensing with his hoodie or the backpack he was wearing, whether sitting at the piano or roaming around the stage while his mom sat in on the ivories. It made one wonder if he was taking the opportunity to serve as an opening act seriously or indulging in parody.
But he did have his own overenthusiastic cheering section in a Massey Hall that was about three-quarters full, which suggested that some of the artsy crowd attending were sympathetic close friends or acquaintances.
When the smoke cleared and it was Kreviazuk’s time to shine, things didn’t start out so well for her either: the opening number “Souls” found her fighting a losing battle to sing over her impeccably disciplined five-piece band, while the followup “Far Away” — although quieter — still projected a hint of imbalance.
But after taking a breather to confess she was slightly nervous during the first few numbers — and to explain how she titled the album Colour Moving and Still due to a friendship with a terminal 13-year-old SickKids patient and her family — she settled in and began to blossom.
The familiar “In This Life” and its sunny Sarah McLachlan-influenced chorus was the first song to really indicate Kreviazuk’s impressive vocal range, while “Hard Sail” nailed the kaleidoscopic scope of her voice with a funky soulfulness that was as husky as it was celebratory. On one of her newly written numbers, “Rockstar Joy,” Kreviazuk channelled a minxy version of her inner Kate Bush/Tori Amos to describe the home life she shares with her husband, and on “Surrounded” — which she described as “the song that started it all” and was the most important to her — she sang with almost wall-bashing intensity.
And this was the thing to marvel at about Chantal Kreviazuk: being multi-faceted is perhaps her greatest strength. She can fit into a mood with chameleonlike elasticity, her four-octave vocal range sounding serious or bordering on camp, as it did with her cover of John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”
Of course, the way her classically trained fingers glide over the keys of her Yamaha Grand is impeccable, offering plenty of tonal colours that vary in complexity through either introducing a song, playing unaccompanied or being supplemented by a band that included veteran local cellist and guitarist Kevin Fox, tasteful guitarist Adrian X, keyboardist and singer Kat Lucas, Our Lady Peace drummer Jason Pierce and bass-playing anchor Anna Ruddick.
Kreviazuk also wove a few stories in between her 23-song selection, revealing herself to be a jokester, a bit of a ham, and only climbing upon a soapbox to declare how invaluable “living in service” is to her life and livelihood.
Getting back to family, most of her tales involved her relationship with her husband and her three kids, and how inextricably her life with them and the material she writes are intertwined.
Of course, the scenario wouldn’t be complete without the presence of Raine Maida, who appeared midway through the show to deliver an alternate rendition of Our Lady Peace’s “Clumsy” — with his wife contributing a rolling wash of keys for the chorus — and “I’m Going To Break Your Heart” from the couple’s Moon Vs. Sun project.
While discussing numbers, they got in a lighthearted argument over song choice during which Kreviazuk announced that she doesn’t trust couples that don’t fight — and then conceded the mild dispute by planting an extended lip lock on her hubby.
Not everything in the show worked. An extended version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” featured a male and female ballet dancer, and their physical intertwining — while admirably performed — split the attention between choreography and music to the point of distraction.
But it was a concert that generally got stronger the longer it lasted and that’s no small achievement, as evidenced by the standing ovations that Kreviazuk received for a few of her numbers.
If you’re curious as to how it went, the event — which also gave nods to the couple’s looming 25th wedding anniversary and 30 years of Our Lady Peace — was recorded for posterity and will air as part of the CBC Music Live at Massey Hall series, date to be announced.