REVIEW
What: Serena Ryder
When: Tuesday night
Where: Royal Theatre
Stars: Four stars (out of five)
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If anyone was expecting the folk-cornered Serena Ryder of years past, she wasn’t in the building Tuesday night.
The pint-size performer from Millbrooke, Ont., may have built a career on her singer-songwriter abilities, but — like it or leave it — her leap into more definitive pop territory on her latest album Harmony is what she brought to the Royal Theatre.
Jogging on stage with a form that would make a retro aerobic instructor proud, Ryder launched into her most recent single, What I Wouldn’t Do. Though rousing, it felt like Ryder’s full energy didn’t come until later in the night, after she settled into the stage and the audience gave her a bit of energy back. Next was 2008’s All for Love, before moving forward again into Call Me and Fall. In fact, despite having six albums of material under her belt, Ryder’s most recent fans were best rewarded with a set list dominated by Harmony tracks.
Now, one thing in particular must be praised: That voice. Not all songs are created equal and some of Ryder’s pop and country-ish ballads aren’t this reviewer’s favourites. Say what you will about songwriting and style, ability is a different thing and where Ryder fared best were the ones that let her exercise her powerful pipes. Those were the bluesy and soul infused ones: Fall was a turning point, but For You, which samples from Nina Simone’s I Put a Spell on You, sealed the deal. With Ryder grabbing her broad-brimmed hat and swaying with her back to the audience before easing into the sultry rich notes, the pared down tune gave her freedom to be heard.
Wrapping up with the southern gospel-inspired Nobody But You, sung accapella with Hil Kiurkoutis, was the cherry on the cake.
Also commendable: Ryder’s rapport with the audience. Let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment; we didn’t give her much to start with and a few of those sing-along moments, where she left a silent verse on All For Love or Little Bit of Red for the audience to fill, were entirely cringe-worthy. Despite a suggestion at the beginning that she’d seen a few people dancing in the aisles, there were none there in the moment.
But to her credit, Ryder didn’t flinch for a moment and somehow, through some witchcraft of whispering jokes into the microphone as though confiding in a friend, feeding lyrics of Hiding Places one by one, and giving wholehearted performances throughout, she charmed the entire room from thrusting their shoulders from side to side on Merry-Go-Round to actually standing and belting out lyrics with her by the time she got to Stompa and giving it on the bongos during Circle of the Sun.
Opening for Ryder, Mike Edel set the stage with some local content. Edel grew up in the Calgary area — “which is usually dry,” he told the audience — but moved to Victoria four years ago and is already writing songs inspired by the place. Though more accustomed to smaller stages, Edel proved himself more than capable of the singer-songwriter musts, with a tight set ranging from a solo cover of Ryan Adams’ In My Time of Need on acoustic guitar to the full band (plus fiddle) crescendos of originals such as The Country Where I Came From and More Than the Summer.
