Big Little Lions heated up the Owl Acoustic Lounge on a chilly , snowy Saturday night, March 11 with agreeable, peppy, CBC radio friendly folk/ pop music. I just caught the end of their show, but enjoyed the Cincinnati/ Vancouver Island duo’s melding of different sounds.
England born, Vancouver based Helen Austin strummed guitar and sang beautifully while chatting engagingly with the rapt audience. Her Cincinnati based compatriot, multi-instrumentalist Paul Otten played everything else. He sang harmonies which thumping away at both his drums and keyboards.
Together they made beautiful music , including a couple that CBC played,featuring plenty of pleasant melodies and an exotic Icelandic feel in places. Austin promised to “take it Up to 11,” for the next couple songs, and while it wasn’t quite up to 11, the next few songs were definitely more perky and upbeat rather than the melancholic feel of the part of the set I heard.
A highlight was “In Spite of it All,” for which Austin got the audience to clap along.
They were called back to play an encore, which was a slow and pretty, sexy number called “Loved Up.”