Grady w/ The Respectables
Cabaret
Montréal, Québec Canada
November 2^nd, 2009

By Ryan Sparks 

Even though it’s been almost seven years since he packed up his guitars and gear and moved down to Austin Texas, Canadian born guitarist Gordie Johnson  hasn’t forgotten his roots, even if one does detect more of a southern drawl in his voice these days. In addition to getting back his second home in Alberta a couple of times a year, he’s also been crisscrossing our fair nation on an almost annual basis with his power trio Grady. While Gordie and his fellow transplants, bassist Big Ben Richardson and drummer Nina Singh, have been slowly establishing themselves south of the border, up here in the great white north Gordie’s name certainly needs no introduction. He fronted the influential rock / reggae band Big Sugar for thirteen years before they finally packed in and called it a day in 2004.  Now touring across Canada to promote their latest release, and third overall, Good As Dead, the band made a pit stop at the Cabaret club in Montreal with local favorites The Respectables in tow.  

The Cabaret club is an ideal place for live music. It’s an intimate venue with good acoustics, unobstructed sight lines, and with a maximum capacity of approximately five hundred, there isn’t a bad seat in the house. However, on this relatively quiet Monday evening the club couldn’t have been more than half full. 

Hometown favorites The Respectables, which have been around since the early 90’s kicked things off at precisely eight o’clock, and for the next forty minutes proceeded to deliver an energetic set of gritty, 70’s era Stones influenced rock.  The band pretty much concentrated on material from their most recent album Sweet Mama, which is their first English disc in almost a decade. The intensity factor was turned up significantly about halfway through their opening slot when they invited guitarist Paul Deslauriers , another longtime  seasoned veteran of the local blues scene, to sit in for a few numbers. His chemistry with the other members of the band was certainly noticeable, as he calmly took his place onstage, strapped on his Gibson Les Paul and served up some truly electrifying slide work, which in turn seemed to inspire the other two guitarists onstage to raise their game on tracks like “Quick As Thieves” and “Devil In The Launderette”. His lengthy, outro solo on “Say Yes, Say No” would almost have been worth the price of admission alone. Gordie even got into the act by shuffling onstage at one point with a quart bottle of Labbat’s Blue, to lend a hand for the vocal duet on “Sugar”, a song he co-wrote with the band. All in all The Respectables turned in a pretty solid and impressive opening set of music. 

After a brief changeover of equipment Grady hit the stage running, although the surging burst of adrenaline was curtailed briefly when Gordie broke a string on his guitar on the first note of the first song “Whatchwedid”.  He calmly switched to the heavy artillery, strapped on his Gibson double neck, and tore into a plethora of face melting slide riffs as the trio delivered a savage one two punch in “Whatchwedid” and “Whiskey River” off the new album Good As Dead. These two songs would set the tone for the rest of the evening and serve as a warning to all who didn’t bring earplugs (unfortunately this included myself) that this was going to be a loud evening of in your face, shredneck metal.  Without so much as a second to catch their breath they segued straight into a searing take on “Ride Like Hell”, which in its current state of sludge infested riff madness, bears little resemblance to the original version recorded by Gordie’s previous band Big Sugar back in the mid 90’s. Johnson was flanked to his left by longtime cohort ‘Big’ Ben Richardson, who held down the bottom end superbly all night on his Thunderbird bass, while drummer Nina Singh, who might be small in stature, certainly played big behind her cow skull adorned double bass kit. 

The people who did bother to venture out on this evening were treated to an absolutely magical evening of music. Over the course of the ninety minute plus set the band seemed pretty intent on delivering as much bang as they could for the $15 ticket price by cramming in as much material as possible, so while there wasn’t a lot of room for too many extended jams, the audience got a hearty cross section of material from Grady’s three albums. Newer songs like “Blackass Woman”, “When The Boots Come Off” and the title track of their most recent effort Good As Dead, were well received and sounded great coupled with “Chilli Cold Blood”, “Bad Old Days”, “West Coast Hobo In A Boxcar Blues” and “On The Wagon” off their sophomore release A Cup Of Cold Poison.  I think the only minor letdown or surprise if you will, of the evening was the conspicuous absence of Big Sugar material, save for the aforementioned “ Ride Like Hell” and “Hammer In My Hand”.  They also didn’t play their current single, their amped up cover of The Tragically Hip’s “Boots Or Hearts”, although what’s a single these days anyway.  However I have to say this didn’t bother me much in the long run and all was forgiven by the time they scorched their way through Hound Dog Taylor’s “Gimme Back My Wig” in one of the encores. 

This was my first time seeing Grady live and it had been ten years since I last witnessed Gordie Johnson weave his magic onstage with Big Sugar. However, watching him and his Grady band mates up close, and really going for broke with every song, brought back that same magical feeling I had when I attended those late era Big Sugar shows; shows that I still count as some of the best I’ve ever seen, by any band period. That being said, Grady is certainly a different animal, but the man at the helm is still in my opinion one of the most underrated musicians out there today. Gordie has always surrounded himself with great talent and Grady is no exception. Sure the band is a fixture on the Austin scene, and every time Gordie sets foot on Canadian soil seems like it’s a cause for celebration, but if these guys ever hit your neck of the woods, make sure you check them out because as a live act Grady is in class all by themselves.