JOSE GONZALEZ + Mia Doi Todd @ Cabaret Juste Pour Rire

By Kelly Pleau - 03/14/2008

Fueled by an unhealthy amount of chocolate and dark coffee, two girls weary of work deadlines and the soggy weather ventured down to St. Laurent and Ste. Catherine’s to be soothed by the finger-picking of José González. Having arrived halfway through his performance at Le National three months earlier, we were determined to have our wrists stamped early this time.

We arrived at the Cabaret to catch the L.A.-based gypsy-folk chanteuse Mia Doi Todd playing her last few songs. Todd's haunting voice permeated the modest concert hall as she delivered a solid performance of "In The End," a melancholic musing on detachment and indifference. Despite the beauty of her unique voice, her songs all shared a similarly weighed-down sound that failed to thrill me.

Not long after Todd's set, González stepped on stage and took a seat in front of a tightly packed crowd. It was only after a few songs that the audience became completely receptive to the Scandinavian singer-songwriter, when he grasped everyone's attention with the recognizable melody of "Heartbeats." The Knife cover set the night off to a swooping pace. González then seamlessly executed songs from both his latest release, In Our Nature, and Veneer, released in 2005.

González' songwriting is introspective and challenging. He treats the heavy subjects of contradictions, indulgences and frailties of human nature with a similar grace to that which he displayed on this particular Friday night. After suddenly stumbling backwards in his chair and falling to the ground with his guitar in hand, he responded with a light-hearted and reassuring, "Why not?" He then reminded us with a grin that the next song would be “serious.” "Deadweight on Velveteen" kicked off an encore that treated us to an additional five songs. Among his final numbers was the much-anticipated "Cycling Trivialities," a searing exploration that mesmerized the crowd for a good eight minutes. González finished the show with an upbeat yet characteristically moody cover of Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy."

Continually probing human frailty with every pluck of a chord, González often leaves his listener quite stunned. Still, endeared by his onstage tumble, we left knowing that with the right combination of caffeine, cover songs, and a recovered capo, even an evening of melancholy can perk one up sometimes.