A massive banner stretches across the back of the stage. It reads "Oldtime Country Music Club of Canada" in fat, hand-quilted blue-and-red letters. Dart boards line the walls with wood paneling that errant darts have slowly chewed away over the years.
One can't help but feel a pang of nostalgia for some lost, simpler time when the beer is served in frosty mugs, fresh from the freezer.
This is The Wheel Club, Montreal's legendary home of classic country music. For fans of roots and traditional music, it doesn't get any more authentic than this. On the hot, humid night of June 17, the music echoed these bona fide, old-timey surroundings in a concert featuring Montreal's favorite sons of bluegrass, Notre Dame de Grass and Toronto's The Foggy Hogtown Boys.
Notre Dame de Grass opened the evening's entertainment with a brilliant display of why they have survived playing bluegrass for more than ten years. Lead singer and songwriter, Matthew Large, welcomed the audience with his arresting, almost keening voice on the hard-driving song, "The Road to Nashville." Large's performance conjures some of the genre's greatest singers, such as Carter Stanley and, more recently, Dan Tyminski (of O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack fame).
A few songs into the set, his voice takes center stage as he belts out his own a capella arrangement of an old field recording, entitled "Hick's Farewell," which was written by an Appalachian preacher as a deathbed prayer to his wife. The lament enthralls the audience, but Large seems self-conscious as he thanks his listeners for indulging his Lomaxian tendencies.
He then picks up his guitar and leads the band in an original song, "New Canada Road," a forceful denunciation of urban sprawl. Large lists Charlie Waller as one of his guitar heroes, and Waller's influence is easily felt in his rock-hard, pounding rhythms, which-because of the lack of percussion-are essential in taking five masterful musicians and corralling them into a single entity.
Next to Large stands mandolin virtuoso Bob Cussen, the "grandfather of the band." Cussen, who has been playing bluegrass for over thirty years, plays solo after solo at breakneck speed. At times, the instrument appears ready to leap from his hands as he rips through screaming trills and complex melodies. He often trades licks with the group's stellar banjo player, Guy Donis. Originally from Belgium, Donis exudes European sophistication. His understated presence onstage only increases the illusion of effortlessness while his hands dance up and down the neck of his five-string.
Completing the standard bluegrass line-up are Jeremy Penner on fiddle and Andrew Horton on bass. Penner, the group's youngest member (who will soon be departing the band in order to pursue other projects), alternates between sizzling solos and silky smooth backing effects while always maintaining a slightly Celtic tone in his phrasings. Horton, who also plays modern and baroque orchestral music when he is not donning his white cowboy hat for NDG, guides the band through covers of Ralph Stanley and Bill Monroe songs with rich, springing walking-bass lines. As a back-up vocalist, he usually takes the higher part, and perfectly compliments Large's voice with surprisingly intricate harmonies.
From the touching original waltz, "Five Years and Four Days," to the Ralph Stanley classic, "Traveling the Highway Home," on this night Notre Dame de Grass demonstrated a deep-seated love and understanding of traditional music. They proved once again that, note for note, they may be the best and most-authentic bluegrass band in Canada.
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