SERENA RYDER @ Cabaret du Musée

By Charbel Nassif - Pop Concordia - 03/15/2009

I was excited to see Serena Ryder live. I knew a handful of her songs but not much else about her.On the off chance that you don’t either, Ryder’s from Ontario, just outside of Peterborough.  She grew up listening to the Beatles and Leonard Cohen. During her show, she told the audience that she was an AM Radio “kind-of-girl.”

The setting. Picture it: Le Cabaret du Musée Juste Pour Rire. It’s a fairly small venue and there was just enough room to move around on the floor. The joint wasn’t packed… I’d say about 90 %. I’d be insulted if I were Ryder. While waiting for her to come on stage, I started looking around – observing. It was dark and on the stage, up high against the back wall, I noticed a panel of wood, with Ryder’s name painted on it. On one side of the panel hung a lantern and on the other side, some kind of skull with antlers. I was traumatized.

Ryder came on at 9:00 pm and the crowd was excited to see her. I was impressed by her attempt to speak French. Between songs, she would sip on a cup of red wine and at one point raised her glass and said, “Santé!” She really tried to engage the audience. At one point she started telling a story about a wrestling match between her and WIL (who had opened the show.) They were in New York, at an Irish Pub. The match ended with a fall down 17 flights of stairs. Ryder joked that she used WIL as a Magic Carpet. The audience laughed hysterically.

On the playlist: “All For You”, “Stumbling Over You”, “Blown Like the Wind at Night”. She lost me when she started singing covers - Buddy Holly’s “It Doesn’t Matter Any More”, Band of Horses’ “Funeral”, Leonard Cohen’s “Sisters of Mercy” and “Fortune’s Wheel”. I felt like I was at church, daydreaming during the sermon and remember checking my cell phone a couple of times. I wasn’t familiar with the originals, and I didn’t connect with the covers. That is not to say that Ryder can’t sing. On the contrary, I love her gritty voice. The girl’s got some powerful pipes. I just wasn’t a fan of the songs.

The time passed slowly. Ryder sang: “Sweeping the Ashes”, “Brand New Love” and “What I Wanna Know”. I was standing there solo, wanting to leave. I didn’t of course and waited patiently for a song I recognized. The encore, “Good Morning Starshine”, restored my faith in Ryder and was definitely a crowd-pleaser. I can’t wait for her to release more albums though, as the more she sings her own songs, the better.

Just because I didn’t enjoy myself, doesn’t mean I wouldn’t go to Ryder’s future shows. However, if my friends wanted to dish out 25 bucks to see her on this present tour, I’d tell them to save their money.  

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