It is always inspiring to see musicians supporting charities, and it makes for a special evening when you can get out and see some great live music while supporting a worthy cause. December 14 was one of those nights as War Child presented A Dakota Nights for War Child Benefit Concert with Luke Doucet. War Child Canada is a registered charity that provides humanitarian assistance to war-affected children in some of the most devastated regions of the world and the featured performer was Luke Doucet.
Luke was at his best, playing a wide variety of songs. Including songs from his most recent album, older ones, newer songs and some great cover tunes. It also didn’t hurt that he brought along his beautiful and talented wife, Melissa McClelland, to sing back up and play guitar. Luke mentioned that it was “not fair” for Melissa to just sing back up for the entire evening so she played one of her own original songs. It made you to wish that there was more time in this evening for both Luke and Melissa to each play a full set of their own tunes.
Luke’s set consisted of songs from his Blood’s Too Rich album. The songs included were “Motorbike,” “Cleveland” (in which he does indeed confirm that he did share an elevator with baseball great Pete Rose), “Long Haul Driver,” “The Day Rick Danko Died” and of course the title track, “Blood’s Too Rich.” From his Broken album Luke performed two of his slower ballads “Broken One” and “Emily Please.” It seemed like every song, no matter whether it was new, old, or a cover, had ample opportunity for Luke to rock away on the guitar. If you haven’t seen Luke play guitar it is time for you to get out there and check him out. He is truly an awesome musician and you will not find a better guitar player out there.
But the real treats of the night were the three cover songs that they performed. The first, The Band’s classic “Ophelia”, the next one was a terrific version of the Gordon Lightfoot’s classic “Sundown,” and finally, Melissa and Luke closed the evening with a final cover tune. They performed as a duet, Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire.” It was a blue grassy, country style, duet of the Boss’s classic and it rocked. This was a phenomenal way to end an excellent evening.