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M. Ward wows crowd at the Commodore

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Portland’s troubadour extraordinaire M. Ward wowed the crowd Thursday night at the Commodore, pulling one great song after another out of the robust catalogue of music he has amassed over the course of six full-length albums and almost thirteen years.

Ward, who is touring in support of his most recent LP Wasteland Companion, kicked things off with a three song solo set that included “Rag,” an instrumental mix of the man’s considerable finger picking prowess and super strumming, “Fuel For Fire,” which shows his canny knack for crafting songs of endearing melancholy, and the easy-to-sing-along-with fan-favourite, “Chinese Translation.”

Fan-favourite, however, may be a slightly misleading term. Ward composes full and balanced albums that display his reverence for the long line of legendary songwriters that came before him and so, for long-time fans, which most of his are, nearly every tune warrants warm recognition. Essentially, he has quietly become one of those artist who has so many good songs that he can not fit them all into a single set – even with two encores.

rsz mwardwithband M. Ward wows crowd at the Commodore

M. Ward and company rolled out one great tune after another at the Thursday night performance.

Ward’s solo start got the show rolling at a pleasant pace and the momentum only seemed to build after he was joined by his band of multi-instrumentalist magicians. In between tracks like “Sad, Sad Song,” “Poison Cup,” “To Save Me” and “Rollercoaster,” which Ward noted was about “friends you think might be crazy,” the mild mannered musician rarely stopped to address the crowd. He did, however, make sure to mention that the Commodore is “probably [his] favourite ballroom in Canada, as far as ballrooms go.”

Interestingly, Ward included a number of covers into the Thursday night set despite his plethora of original material. Daniel Johnston’s “To Go Home,” which is featured on Ward’s 2006 album Post-War made for an obvious inclusion. Even the instrumental nod to late guitar guru John Fahey, during which Ward’s picking hand snagged at the strings like a five-legged spider, seemed sensible. But, when Ward suddenly began to shred the intro riff of Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven,” just as his own tune “Never Had Nobody Like You” came to an end during the first encore, the crowd erupted in shock and excitement.

After the blistering Berry cover, no one wanted to leave and so they didn’t. Instead they clapped, cheered, chanted and stomped until, finally, Ward reappeared to play yet another Johnston cover, “The Story of an Artist,” which Ward fittingly dedicated to all the artist living in Vancouver, giving special mention to local musician and visual artist Rodney Graham.

The subtle and stirring cover, which featured Ward on keyboard with some swelling trumpet accompaniment, was the perfect finish to a night filled with wonderful music.

Here is a video of Ward playing “Story of an Artist” from a previous show.



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