Ode to the wonderful North End Artist Community!

Halifax based songbird Jenn Grant has finally found a stage at the Fred gallery in the cozy North End in her unplanned efforts to promote the In The Dead of Winter festival.

Amelia Curran, a fellow songstress and one of the organizers of the In the Dead of Winter festival takes the microphone, welcomes the small intimate crowd and departs with the words, “I hope that you enjoy the music because it’s all about the music.”

And it truly is, Grant has been busy touring the past few months yet she can’t stick to her self-prescribed rest, “I decided to take a month off from playing music but I decided to play tonight because I was going crazy,” she muses on life without music.

Grant and bassist Sean MacGillivray dance casually and comfortably through the set list. With obvious musical chemistry they command the attention of the audience who sit rapt at every lull and howl in Grant’s vocals.

Surrounding the stage are paintings of various architectural wonders around the North and Agricola area by local artist Michael Lewis. Planned or not, Grant’s aesthetic blends perfectly with the mood of the paintings: dreamy, beautiful and a bit unclear.

The paintings are special to this group of musicians who’ve spent so many years in the integral North End of Halifax’s music community. One painting illustrates the gallery Fred while another portrays an obscured scene at Gus’ Pub across the street.

“I remember the first or second time I played,” Grant reflects. “It was at Gus’ Pub on a Sunday afternoon and they booed me. It was all these old people. They all looked like they’d been there for seven-million years. There was this one woman who hated me the most named Rosaline. She hated me at first, but we were friends by the end and we wrote this song called Rosaline.” Grant and MacGillivray jump to a playful improvised rendition of the song.

While it is not quite the dead of winter, the night promised a stunning lineup for the mid-February music festival at the forefront of the Halifax music scene. A full lineup will be announced late November.

*Originally written for my Journalism class.