From the Back of the Film, Plaskett Unplugged



Fresh off the plane from Ireland, Joel dawned the symmetric stage to treat a sold out crowd of Truronians to an intimate night of stripped down classics and stories from the road. Joel filled the evening with bare bone versions of songs spanning his entire career. For a man of only 34 years he has certainly built an impressive body of work.

Joel took time to explain many of his songs including his new release “On the Rail”. Joel was commissioned by CBC to write a song about the Cabot Trail as a part of CBC Radio 2's "Great Canadian Song quest" Album.

LISTEN HERE

He wrote the song thinking of what John Cabot would have been looking for, dreaming of and discovering during his transatlantic voyage.

Bill Plaskett joined his son on stage for a number of tunes throughout the night. Bill’s effortless finger style guitar playing rooted the more folky tunes like Heartless, Heartless, Heartless, Happen Now and Deny, Deny, Deny.

Joel was very appreciative of the attentive crowd. He made numerous comments through out the night about how nice it was to play to such a quite, polite crowd. This was the first time Joel has played in Truro and he was ashamed to admit he had played Middle Musquodoboit, but had never made the hour commute to Truro for a gig before.

On Tuesday the East Coast Music Award nominations were announced and topping the list with eight recognitions was none other then J.P. himself. The opportunity to see such an accomplished performer in a small venue was quickly capitalized by die hard fans and local followers. As far as I know the tickets for the show never even made it to the Plaskett site (I was watching) they were sold out in the blink of an eye.



I can’t see Joel ever slowing down in the foreseeable future. This guy just keeps expanding his horizons. In the last few months he has managed to release a triple record, promote and tour “Three”, began producing a record for Steve Poltz called Dreamhouse, started producing a record for David Myles in November at the Scotland, started some tunes with Matthew Grimson and managed to sneak in a “foggy” trip to Ireland.

One thing that “Let me down” was the sound at the Marigold Centre. The acoustics are great, the sight lines are flawless but the P.A. system seemed to be at a proper level for a pre-school nursery. Maybe I like my music loud but when I fell like my toe tapping is disrupting the concert I think the volume needs to go up….just a suggestion for the Marigold Centre, not a complaint. It would really improve the upper sections experience if there was another bank of monitors mounted in the upper section. But for the record I think the Marigold is one of the top soft seat listening room venues in the province.

Highlights of the night:
• New Scotland Blues
• Nothing more to say to you
• Powerful Lights


Watch for Joel to take a clean sweep at the ECMA’s this year.

Keep the beat,

Jesse James