You may know — you elusive, consistent reader, you — that earlier this year The Cascade published a review of Andy Shauf’s last performance in Vancouver at the Fox Cabaret. Now he has returned to the same town in the same venue. I thought it would be interesting to compare the two shows, to look at his growth over the past year, and determine if there was any change. Over the past year, I have heard Shauf’s music make its way into coffee shops, pubs, and gain more radio play than he has seen before. I assumed this would likely lead to a larger audience and a more diverse crowd.
In contrast to his show last year, the audience seemed to be made up of more than just die-hard fans. I was hard-pressed to tell the difference between indifference or an unfamiliarity with his music when there was only scattered applause each time the band broke from the melody of a song into a jam session.
It is easy to understand why indifference could have been a problem, over unfamiliarity. I believe that indifference is often confused with a lack of confidence. Sometimes you don’t want to raise your hand in class when a prof asks a question you know the answer to because you don’t want the attention. I get that. My hunch is that those who love Andy Shauf — myself included — do so because we are sad and he knows how to sing the words and makes the sounds that coincide with the feelings we feel. With lyrics like “Why do I always find the worst in you, do you always find the worst in me?” and “It’s not as bad as it seems” you get the feeling that Shauf might be going through the same thing as you. His words are sweet sounding but his lyrics are poignant and melancholy, arousing peace and calm in the listener while still allowing them to reflect on the sad, dark things he speaks of.
If the audience had really been indifferent, I assume they would not have gone through the effort of packing themselves, body against sweaty body, into the Fox Cabaret, a tiny, stinky, sticky venue that was once a porn theatre, thick with hot air that stung a little as it went down. Unlike the show from earlier this year, the room wasn’t as transfixed as he opened his set. Rather than standing in complete silence, several people were carrying on their conversations, unphased by the performance — typical Vancouver protocol, but in a small venue with a limited capability for the volume of the band, this tends to be a big deal.
I could tell the heat was getting to people, and that Andy’s penetrating awkwardness was in fact mirrored in the makeup of the crowd. During his performance of “Early to the Party,” a song about the tragedy of showing up to a party before you are welcome and generally having a hard time fitting in, I watched a man shuffle past me shortly after Shauf sang “Excuse yourself and smoke a cigarette outside.”
The real secret to Shauf’s appeal is his nervous demeanour and his desire to please the audience when he performs. He’s a true-bred sweetheart; he timidly asked for water which the crowd parted for as it was delivered to him, and he brought attention to and thanked his parents, who were present at the show. “I’ve never sweated this much in my life,” he side-grinned into the mic at one point. I’m still not sure if he spoke this to the audience or to his band. He seemed awkward and not sure who to address for fear of acceptance.
There was a climax of confidence, though, as Shauf finished his set with “The Magician.” The loud, angry guitar lunged in and completely changed the atmosphere of the whole venue. There was screaming, shouting, and confident chorus to round off the performance. Shauf exited, only to return, of course, minutes later for an encore as his freshly roused fans cheered him back to the stage.
“Awe, thank you,” he said before intro-congratulating his band and crew and then finishing the night with his murder-suicide ballad “Wendell Walker.” Only the bartender made noise with his tips as a last few desperate people tried to beat last call. The silence of his previous show returned. Transfixed, and with no phones raised, the audience took in the final few seconds of the set. A spotlight was turned to Andy’s face as his band rested in the violent red glow of the lights beside him.
“My son, my son, she is the devil’s child,” he sang in a whisper to a silent theatre. The show slowly ceased as the song faded from recognisability and into a righteous, yet mellow improvisation by all four members elaborating upon one another until nearly in chaos. Shauf’s guitar rang out alone at last, the grounding of it buzzing in the silent air. While the audience had started as a cautious, possibly nervous group, they finished raucous and enthusiastic, with all apprehensions removed. It seems that Andy Shauf has the capability through his melancholy and timid music to create connection and harvest confidence from an audience of listeners that are each just as anxious and self-conscious about showing up early to the party as Andy himself.
