How things can change in a week.
While Lethbridge Folk Club president Morris Soenen was panicking a little bit over slow ticket sales for Edmonton songwriter Ken Stead a week before the show, people were packed into the back of MJs Cycle, Jan. 30 on an unusually sinister, foggy, snowy night for the performance.
They were not disappointed as Stead entertained the enraptured audience with jokes and storied as he joked to begin the show, “I’ve never played in a bike shop before. If anybody wants to leave, there’s 30 getaway vehicles in the back.”
Nobody did. He began his set in a gospel mood and tried to get everybody in the room to sing “Wade In the Water,” along with him.
He followed that up with a song about an abusive father called “ Love You Anyway” and warmed up his fingers for some quick picking.
He told a story about his mother “punishing” him for a misdeed by taking him to the Edmonton Folk Festival, which ended up changing the course of his life.
Stead played an assortment of originals, full of fleet fingered picking and positive lyrics.
“Pressing On” was a highlight as was his blues song “ Too Cool To Sing the Blues,” and “Little Bird,” another pretty one which officially ended the first half of the show.
