…continued from last post

As we made our way back to our seats, we noted that we were sitting near the sound and light board so we couldn’t help top notice that the Telman brothers; Paul and Tom were at their stations for controlling sound and lights respectively. We had corresponded with Tom on several occasions over the last 20 years as he’s also the webmaster for the band. Any time we bought CDs from the website, we’d get emails from him to confirm and we’d often ask when and if the band might ever make it back to North America again. Wistfully hoping for a Nits concert in our lifetimes. Alas, the last time Nits were on Montreal soil was in 2002.

This time it was finally happening and we told Tom that we had came over from North Carolina to attend this special concert and that it was a long time coming for us. Ron Kane had sent over 7″ singles of “Sketches Of Spain,” “Mask,” and “Nescio” in 1985 and we moved forward from that point and within a year, had bought the first of many Nits CDs with “Hat.” After hearing us talk with Tom, our seatmates nearby included a woman who began talking with us. She and her husband were attending their 6th Nits show that evening. She had seen them the first time in 1987, when their biggest hit single “In The Dutch Mountains” raised their profile in their home country. And obviously she had stuck with them over time even as they never had a hit as big as that one again.

The stage was obviously extrapolated from the new EP artwork by Henk Hofstede and his graphic designer mate Reimke Kuipers. White flats of the cover art were placed behind the instruments and there were smaller models of the tree/house/fire triumvirate at the front of the stage; “Stonehenge scale.” Shortly after the 8:00 p.m. start time, the band finally took to the stage.

The three members were abetted by a trio of backing vocalists who sat on stool at the center of the backline. They went right into the set by playing the entirety of the new EP in full. Having only had the time to have heard it a couple of time before our trip, what struck me then about “Tree House Fire” was its essential melancholy. With the songs written specifically to address the loss of the band’s studio/archive/home base in the fire of two years ago, the palpable sense of loss and grief that was woven through the new music was as vivid as if there had been a loss of life.

What the nearly in full sequence playing of the same music live in the front end of their first set accomplished this evening was to moderate the grief of the moment embodied in the songs with the sense of acceptance that the perspective of another year or so could bring. And the celebration of the band’s fifty years as commemorated by this evening, further pushed the emotional needle into a surprising sense of joy at the sense that the band were still extant, and were neither shattered by the loss of their studio nor the news that singer Hofstede had subsequently been diagnosed with myasthenia gravis.

Instead, the somber curtain that was drawn over the music of “Tree House Fire” had been cast aside and the beautiful melancholy of the songs enhanced by the band playing this music live for the first time. bringing a sense of the euphoric even to the bleak emotional subject matter. Through this new music, the staging and lighting of the performance was abetted by the backing vocalists as well as the lighting and projections on the reflective flats at the back of the stage. Through it all, Henk performed as he always had; refusing to capitulate just yet to the reality of his diagnosis. Though the knowledge of the toll that myasthenia gravis takes on the strength and vitality of a performer will probably lead to a moderation of the band’s live performance. Their NIT50 tour of Europe is spread judiciously through the last three months of the year. With as few as six dates a month, understandably.

Instead of the climactic song, “The Wind Has No Clothes” from “Tree House Fire,” the band next played a track from the first Nits CD I was able to buy. “A House” from “Hat.” Next came “A Touch Of Henry Moore” from 1983’s “Omsk.” The first of three songs from that pivotal Nits album. Though it was a song 41 years old, its sophistication allowed it to sit cheek by jowl with the new EP material effortlessly. Only then did the final piece of “Tree House Fire” manifest with “The Wind Has No Clothes.”

“The Infinite Shoeblack,” from “Giant, Normal, Dwarf” followed, inserting a more playful vibe into the flow before the segue to the next song in their set. A fervent “Nescio” with all of its Spanish romanticism and drama given full blossom in the playing of this, their first big Dutch hit song. And with that the first set had reached its conclusion. The set had been dominated by the new release that was played in full and matched with a complementary selection of material that sustained the mood. I wondered where the rest of the set would take us on our Nits journey.

Next: …Everywhere Else