C.R. Avery explored the “grey area” between rock and roll, rap, and blues music with an intimate show at the NAAG Gallery, April 27.
His brief set included a little bit of everything, stream of consciousness rambling poetic lines, a few curses, some blues piano, some well crafted poetry punctuated with bluesy harmonica and beat-boxing, some banjo, a lot of jokes and few subtle shots at people talking during his show. He was pretty excited about playing the room and decided to not even use the mic for a couple numbers because of the intimacy.
The crowd of about 30 was pretty quiet for most of the show, but started to chatter near the end, which was beginning to distract him a little.
Avery is a multi-talented performer and showed prowess on a lot of different instruments from acoustic guitar to playing slide on his banjo while blowing harp solos interspersed with beat-boxing and sound effects, while reciting thought provoking lyrics, which painted vivid pictures of people on the down on out., His wry sense of humour shone through in his lyrics, which were just plain captivating.
The show was very similar to his show at the Geomatic Attic a few months ago. Pierre Elliott Trudeau was a highlight as was his “MC Howlin Wolf, MC Muddy Waters and MC Ice T” song. Well they all were. It was a great way to spend a solid hour listen to his “ramblings.”
One of his first ones about a girl who didn’t call,” appealed to the lonely slacker living in all of the audience members. And “My Bad,” coaxed forth a few laughs from the vivid and harrowing portraits of people portrayed in the poem.
Another one about an ex called “4 a.m. Text,” had the audience mouthing the chorus “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
His Pepsi sell out song drew the biggest laugh of the night and the loudest cheers. There was a lot of talk about “eating,” so he said “I’m sorry for my dirty mouth.”
“Being a crossover artist is more complex than Ulysses,” he observed in one of his poems.
