Disclaimer: this
Shit Camera Exposé handily lives up to its name because it was near impossible
to get a decent picture of Mr. Romano.
Stepping into the
busy Merchant Ale House, a friend and I were immediately greeted by Daniel
Romano’s new record sitting on the merch table. Entitled Come Cry With Me, it
was probably the best invitation we were bound to get on a Sunday evening in
Saint Catharines. Worth noting: it takes a bad-ass to pull off the paisley-print
blazer of pink flowers that Romano’s sporting on the cover, and that same
bad-ass walked in half-way through Marine Dreams’ opening set. Entrenched in a
wool-collared coat, cigarette-in-mouth and with a dramatic pomp of black hair
that fell in sharp blades, Daniel Romano had been a lank figure leering in from
outside for twenty minutes while the crowd was nodding along.
The venue, settled
less than half an hour away from Romano’s hometown of Welland, Ontario, was
already packed and several familiar faces from the You’ve Changed Records
roster (including Tamara Lindeman of The Weather Station, who I resisted
gushing to all night) were on hand. If the evening resembled a homecoming (and
it did – a guy in front of me was bragging through obscenities about sharing a
band with him in junior high), Romano was clearly the royalty-in-waiting, a
poorly kept local secret.
But now, it was time
for a reality check. Performing a set heavily attuned to Come Cry With Me,
Daniel Romano and his band offered a fittingly grim end to the weekend with songs
about abandonment, heartbreak and disappointment. As bleak as Romano’s
songwriting has become since his reawakening as a country-man, his awareness of
the genre’s gears made every sad reverie something to take comfort in. The band
knew their way around Sleep Beneath the Willow highlight “Time Forgot (To
Change My Heart)” expertly, guitar and pedal steel improvising around Romano’s
low register, and the breadth of warm instrumentation turned tough new track
“I’m Not Crying Over You” into a drunken waltz.
A lot of curt
balladry couldn’t detract from Romano’s intensity. From the few instances I
caught his face between audience shoulders, Romano peered straight into the
claustrophobically close crowd, making eye-to-eye contact with those less than
three feet in front of him. And his momentum served the content well, the band
taking hardly a breath between a smattering of upbeat selections. “Chicken
Bill” was as preposterous live as it is on disc, a fast-talking bass romp that
fell decidedly south of the Mason-Dixon line, while “Paul and Jon” lost its
gospel trimmings in favour of a shit-kicking, Johnny Cash rendition.
By the time the band
reached a five-song medley, which incorporated many tracks from Workin’ For the
Music Man, to close the night, a glance around the bar revealed a buzzing and
diverse society of hardcore Romano fans; arm in arm singing “My Greatest
Mistake”, giving nods of approval back and forth to deep cuts like “Your
Hands”. And when Romano nailed fan-favourite “Hard On You”, even the
heartbroken among us felt renewed, like it was Saturday night all over again.
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