Canadian country doesn’t do subtle…
16th January 2016
The Empire Music Hall, Botanic Avenue, Belfast
I have always believed that we get the media and politicians we deserve and if that’s true then Canada must be one of the coolest countries in the world right now.
Their Prime Minster stands a handsome 6’2”, has been a TV actor, a snowboard instructor and an amateur boxer. As a country they seem economically robust and more politically together than their neighbours. In 2015, when a plane load of Syrian refugees landed on Canadian soil, they were greeted by warm coats and kind words from retired snowboard instructor Justin Trudeau: “You are safe at home now”.
Musically they are pretty hot too – From KD Lang to Doug Paisley, Canada contributes more than its fair share to the list of Americana greats. In fact the last time I attended a gig at The Empire it was for Ron Sexsmith.
Tonight it’s Lindi Ortega.
Fellow Canadian Jordan Klassen opens the show for Ortega, himself a wonderful singer and songwriter who gives a new meaning to the word modest. Some fine and very personal songs played to an audience who were perhaps more lying in wait for the main act than giving Klassen the attention he fully deserved.
Undoubtedly his time will come. Ortega and her band are in Belfast to support her 4th studio album, ‘Faded Gloryville’, an album full of the influences of her predecessors, both male and female from Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Tanya Tucker and Loretta Lynne but when she takes to the stage, it’s hard to make any comparison beyond Dolly Parton.
Her diminutive frame (relative to the guitarist and bass player), her stage presence, confidence and voice, Ortega is Dolly Parton with jump leads.
Hailing from Toronto but living in Nashville, Ortega is half Mexican, half Irish – managing a “whatabout ye?’ at the start of the show.
The band is excellent too. (A great guitarist on full-twang, not dissimilar to Pete Anderson, who played with Dwight Yoakam on his early work. It may be just me, but he also has an uncanny resemblance to Chevy Chase.)
Her songs are powerful and her singing comfortably fuses together Old Country, Soul, Rockabilly and New Country.
Ortega joins a band of strong female country singers who are not uncomfortable talking about their lives with a freedom usually only afforded to their male counterparts. Along with Brandy Clarke and Kacey Musgraves, Ortega is as comfortable singing about smoking pot as she is about heartache and cheating.
In ‘Ashes’ she pleads for her love to stay and in I Ain’t The Girl For You’ she is just as forthright in her search for freedom.
Ortega, by her own admission, doesn’t do subtle.
The title track of her recent album is a warning to all those prepared to sacrifice everything in search of stardom, who get to a point and then seem to give up – in a recent interview she suggests that she may have almost been a victim on that journey, but she pushed on through.
The same lady would be hard to stop.