Julie Doiron Live at the Waldorf Hotel
Julie Doiron’s musical style can be a bit restless: even if she describes her lyrics as being “all about heartbreak” the sound can vary from hard fuzzed out guitars and driving beats like the ones that open side two of 2009’s I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day to the quiet acoustic finger picking style that was prominently displayed on 2010’s Daniel, Fred & Julie tour. As an artist, her ability to combine these two in a single performance is one the things that makes her live shows entertaining.
Watched by a standing room only crowd at Vancouver’s Waldorf Hotel, Doiron stepped onto the stage without a band and carrying only her electric guitar, so it seemed like this show was going to start quietly.
There’s quiet and then there’s quiet of course, and the latter is the sort of thing that can happen in a crowded room: as Doiron’s set started with the unaccompanied vocal on Homeless you could have heard a pin drop. Quite a way to start a show, Julie. Well done.
Doiron’s always had a charming stage presence, interacting with the audience in a pretty stream of consciousness style (you can get a sense of this in her Tiny Desk Concert from a while back) and it didn’t take long for her to set the mood, announcing that the set would start with a few solo numbers and audience requests before the band came out.