03.20.2008 Jill Barber / Matt Barber

Amazingly, this show would be the first sister/brother show that I've been to. Not surprisingly, their music are quite similar, yet each have their own unique style. The tour was dubbed the "Sibling Revelry" tour, which was made more appropriate as the night wore on. Despite being relatively low key in terms of promotion, this show did sell out much to the chagrin of the unlucky few who had to find something else to do that night.

Matt Barber the elder of the two siblings started the show in place of an absent Sevilles. Most of his set consisted of folk alternative country type music. Most songs were done with an electric guitar/keyboard player and a stand up bassist shared by the Barbers. Other songs were Matt solo. This is where Matt seemed to shine and captivate the crowd the most. Also of note were a couple of numbers done with Jill.

Jill Barber continued the set in much the same way her brother started. What set Jill apart from her brother was her storytelling. Much like the Quinn sisters, she freely regaled the audience with humours stories of their childhood and odd "inside jokes" that only members of the audience with 'Barber' as their last would find amusing. At one point a fan member calls out 'Jillian', at which point she replies something to the affect of "is my mother in the house?" Matt then quips "Is Anne Murrary here?", apparently alluding to the fact that she resembles the other Canadian songstress. Jill's set consisted of about 80 minutes of song and story. On some songs, Matt would return the favor and jump in on her sister's songs, playing on keyboards, guitar and suitcase (they had no drums). The first set ended with the crowd pleasing 'Hardline'. Easily the song most people were waiting to hear. During the encore, she asked for requests from the crowd. Someone in the crowd gave her some song lyrics. She ended up playing the song anyways. The night ended with a sultry cover of Neil Young's It's a Dream.

$12/$17 - SOLD OUT
photo credit: Adrian Burden