Canvas @ the House of Blues

My old friend Dolloras Knight is the front woman of a very hip pop indi band that preforms a variety of grooving mellodies and powerfull harmonic ballods. When i first recieved their demo CD I was less than impressed. What I heard was a mesh of generic guitar and piano tunes and unspecific harmonizing. Naturally my expectations were not all that high when i walked into the House of Blues Anaheim last Friday night to watch the band open for Berlin (think Tom Cruse and Kelly McGillis in Top Gun). Up until that point I had never actually set foot inside of the House and I was quite surprised at how compact and tight everything was. The floor and pit were jammed into an area which i perceived to be no larger that the average boxing ring, but the ceiling towered overhead and the row of seats on the second deck crowned the perimeter of the outer walls of the enclosed lower stage area. Although small, the venue did offer an unparalleled intimacy between the audience and the band. While in the pit, one had the impression that the band was playing to them directly and not just to the 300 others which crowded into the crammed pit section with drinks spilling and bodies bouncing off of each other.

I arrived well into the set and i was immediately taken aback by the realization that Canvas was not performance acoustically, but rather with heavy percussion, amplified guitar and the occasional but always welcome sporadic chimes and sounds of a synthesizer. I was unable to ascertain the names of all the songs played, but i can say that the first impression i received of the harmonization taking place bared a very similar style to that of the mid 90's Dixie Chicks, just not as country, yet very powerful. The next song was one governed by a soothing piano tune. The vocals took on a sound that to me resembled Fleetwood Mack with background sounds that characterize the best traits of Independent genre music, along with a hard drum beat. Although the vocals had moments of resemblance to a myriad of artists i could not deny the way in which the voices i heard were so unique and above all the haunting vocalizations that i could only compare with My Morning Jacket's Jim James. Then came the haunting rendition of "Crazy", written by Gnarls Barkly, but Canvas made the popular tune refreshingly incompatible trough the use of large scale harmonization and a funky guitar and synth groove that left me wondering if i was watching a first class indi-folk band or an old friend up on that stage.

Over all, the songs I heard preformed by Canvas left quite an impression on me and made me realize how important it really is to view music with nothing less than a completely open mind. Although this band is young, they have quite a bit of potential and a formidable amount of Groove to play with. You know a band put on a great performance when you can still hear the harmonies of their songs reverberating in your memory even days after leaving the auditorium, and that is exactly the impression that was left on me by Canvas.