Music

The Blushing Brides “Love Is Strong”

By Rik Roe for Curtains Up

The Blushing Brides are a constant reminder how the very provoking lyric of “Love is Strong”, is both their motto and their moniker.

Having recently had the grand privilege of seeing and hearing them at a packed Club Soda, mere months before their iconic counterparts appear in Montreal, we as Montrealers, were treated to the supreme tribute to the Rolling Stones, proving their well-earned moniker of the “World’s Most Dangerous Tribute” to Mick and the crew.

Live at Club Soda 2013
Live at Club Soda 2013

In a great new tradition, Club Soda, as part of it’s reverence to tribute/cover band attention, garnered attention by offering free admission to those who went online and reserved and printed tickets. Those who presented themselves at the door without such had the guilty pleasure of a small admission fee, and a fee that is/was quite paltry compared to what the Original Artists are charging for their recent performances.

Live at Club Soda 2013
Live at Club Soda 2013

Maurice Raymond, lead singer of the Blushing Brides, stated it quite simply during soundcheck, while standing in the middle of the empty venue, with a hinted lilt of a British-accent in his Mick persona when he simply stated “THIS, is Rock’n’Roll!”

Being able to hear the band warm-up, and then witness the actual concert, is like having two full meals. One sitting seems like enough and you’re full, but you still want more. Even when you get more, you still crave more. This is how the Band gets, the more receptive the audience, the more ardent and focused their playing and raw stage power gets.

Live at Club Soda 2013
Live at Club Soda 2013

 

From the guitar slinging of Paul Martin and James Green, complemented by Matt Greenberg on Bass, with the percussive backbeat of Sascha Tukasch on drums, vocalist Maurice Raymond is able to channel the essence of the Mick Jagger that was, to make the Blushing Brides become what the Rolling Stones were and ever will be, legends and larger than life “giants”.

Live at Club Soda 2013
Live at Club Soda 2013

Musical memories come to life, in the epitomy and honesty of the way the music was performed in the day, you are transported to a virtually very private show, that even in this full of a venue, had you feeling as if the show was in a small private club. Yet the grandeur of the stage and the personalities that filled it, is what reminded you most of what the Stones mean to the people, and why the Blushing Brides have been able to do what they do, so well, and for so long.

Playing traditional hits, and some not so much, exposes the audience to the versatility of the musicians. Playing time honored classics such as “Brown Sugar” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and interlacing them with other “classics” not necessarily heard during a “traditional” show. In their own words, “offering a glimpse of the B-sides” for those of us who know what vinyl once was.

Live at Club Soda 2013
Live at Club Soda 2013

A traditional Stones show, probably does not include what we witnessed at Club Soda: the modern day inclusion/generation of a mosh pit and stage diving. Yet that was more likely due to the emotionally charged audience’s creation and participation, along with the radical age difference that truly was one of all ages.

The Blushing Brides love is strong of the Rolling Stones, and we all bore witness to that fact that evening, but the behind the scenes facts are such that their love for their nostalgic tribute is only as strong as their friendship and loyalty to each other, which has endured through the decades. Knowing ages and timelines are great, but seeing and hearing the cajoling and camaraderie that interplays between the songs, is what makes them the friends that endure, as much as the notes and applause that echoed that evening, and still do in the mind’s eye of the crowd that was there.

Live at Club Soda 2013
Live at Club Soda 2013

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