Street Spirit
Cast no shadow
BY Sarah Liss January 30, 2008 14:01
Thanks to Harold Ramis’ early-’90s vehicle for pseudo-muse Bill Murray, Groundhog Day — formerly the day where a small rodent determines whether we have to endure another six weeks of depression — that day has a special meaning. Following the oddball comedy that starred Murray as a meteorologist forced to relive Feb. 2 over and over again, “Groundhog day” has come to connote interminable repetition.
But if you wanna get Pollyannaish about it, you can spin on it as a sign that everyone gets a second chance. It’s this latter concept that came to mind as I discovered that not one, but two blasts from the past will be appearing on Toronto stages this week.
The first musical Lazarus rises again on Groundhog Day itself. Unless you’re a fan of Catskills comedy, musical theatre or the Newport Folk fest, you might not be familiar with Theodore Bikel. But the octogenarian — who hits the Toronto Centre for the Arts Saturday (Feb. 2) — is a total legend. Not only was Austrian-born Bikel, who co-founded the famous Newport fest, hangin’ by the stage during Bob Dylan’s inaugural performance of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” but he was the first-ever Captain Von Trapp to appear in the Broadway version of The Sound of Music. (The latter fact makes me way more excited.)
Because his musical career was overshadowed by film, stage and TV performances, Bikel doesn’t get enough props these days for his ‘50s recordings of traditional Jewish folk songs. These should make up a good chunk of Saturday’s show, where he’ll be backed by local klezmer fusionists Beyond The Pale. The guy’s incredible — I was turned on to his estimable talents by Montreal heeb hop prankster Josh “SoCalled” Dolgin, who showcased his buddy Bikel on last year’s Ghettoblaster album.
A couple of days later, arena-rock fans can take a trip down the memory highway of life when an icon of a very different sort gets his rocks off at the Air Canada Centre on Feb. 6. I’m referring, of course, to the legendary Tom Cochrane, once the Great White Hope of Canrock.
The stage for Wednesday’s large-scale rawk show with his Red Rider cronies was set months ago, when Cochrane made a surprise appearance as part of Kevin Drew’s Spirit If… CD launch at Lee’s Palace. Though Drew is no stranger to second chances (Broken Social Scene is arguably the indie scene’s best Groundhog Day vehicle, ensuring that members of hHead, By Divine Right and other ‘90s outfits still had a place to plug in their amps), most laughed off promises of a Cochrane cameo. But based on responses to the raspy-voiced “Life Is a Highway” singer’s roof-raising solo during Drew’s show (the crowd cheered louder for him than they did for the round of free tequila shots), ‘08 might just be the year Cochrane makes a comeback.
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