IN CONCERT
Kent Fiddy and David Sinclair
Where: Butchart Gardens
When: Sunday, 7: 30 p.m.
Tickets: Included in park admission, $29.90 for adults, $14.80 for youth and $3 for children under 13, available online at butchartgardens.com or at the venue
Having toured as Sarah McLachlan's guitarist during the 1990s, at the zenith of the singer's popularity, David Sinclair has strummed in front of gargantuan crowds in a host of far-flung locales.
The experience hasn't spoiled the Vancouver producer, session musician and songwriter for less grandiose projects closer to home. He gigs locally with artists of various creative stripes.
Currently, the 60-year-old is performing eight shows a week as a backing band member for the Vancouver production of Altar Boyz, a gospel-tinged comedic musical.
"My thing is to do the best possible job in whatever situation I'm in," Sinclair says. "That's the only way it's satisfying for me."
Despite his hectic schedule, he's saved time and energy to perform a series of dates with Comox singer-songwriter Kent Fiddy, whom Sinclair has known since the 1970s.
The duo has performed a handful of shows on Vancouver Island this summer. Sunday night's show at Butchart Gardens will be their last of the season.
Accompanied by bassist Lee Oliphant, Sinclair and Fiddy will perform selections from their respective catalogues, as well as tunes they've worked on together. The 2010 album The Way It Oughta Be was released under both artists' names.
And Sinclair has produced Fiddy solo outings, including 1997's Dreams and Destiny: Songs of the West Coast and this year's Small Gratitudes.
The Butchart performance promises to be an intimate affair, not only because the players on stage are old buddies. Sinclair and Fiddy purvey harmony-laden folk and lyrics that chronicle people and places they've encountered over the years.
Fiddy routinely sings about Canada's varied landscape and history, a trend that crystallized with the release of Dreams and Destiny, which boasted Forever, My B.C. Cowritten with Juno-winning country singer Gary Fjellgaard of Gabriola Island, the tune was selected for The Great Canadian Songbook, an anthology of about 50 patriotic anthems.
Inspired by a trip back to the Maritimes, where he spent much of his youth, he felt compelled to write music that referenced his adopted home province.
"I grew up listening to music there in which locality is celebrated, where culture is celebrated, where a sense of place is inherent," says Fiddy, also 60.
"It's very different from the West Coast, where I've lived for most of my adult life."
In a live setting, Fiddy weaves in personal anecdotes about the inspirations for his lyrics, which often possess tidbits about Canadian history.
"He's good at setting up the stories behind the songs," Sinclair says. "People come away being newly informed about stuff they maybe didn't realize."
