quarter notes | Daniel Lanois, Imperial Theatre, Sarnia, ON, August 8, 2026
This is the kind of show that breathes.
Quarter Notes are tiny quick missives that exist so I don't give my words away to social media, AI and the algorithm. I am dashing these off like a social media post and not laboring over them. You might get an email about them and you might not.
Lanois was touring Canada again with the trio, Jermaine Homes on drums and the everpresent Jim Wilson on bass. I saw them last summer in London, Ontario, but this time they were in Sarnia, which is just across the river from Port Huron. It was an hour door to door, to a tiny rehabbed old movie theater seating 600. I picked up a ticket in the fourth row less than a week ago but I would have been fine anywhere (mostly, more on that later).
Lanois doesn't use a guitar stand but instead gently rests his axes on a large upholstered cushion. He alternated between a goldtop Les Paul, what I think was a Firebird (it had that kind of shape) and of course when he sat down to play pedal steel. And he has the rhythm section which is a rhythm section but it also somehow isn't, like they are locked together but not in an aggressive way, it feels more like they're firmly threading themselves through and around the lines along the edges.
They opened with "Still Water," "Under A Stormy Sky" and "The Maker" and it felt like we were levitating. I decided that more than anything this evening reminded me of what I get out of a sound bath, which is where I'm just there to literally be immersed in the whatever notes or music or noise or sound is happening. I was trying hard to not overthink or overprocess and just feel it.
This show felt more muscular and more aggressive than the one I saw last summer but also? I think existing in the world right now would logically produce that kind of reaction.
I could watch Jermaine Holmes play drums all day, this tiny minimalist kit which he operates like magic. And I pondered Lanois wanting that kind of rhythm in this show and how it might seem like a mismatch with Lanois' sonic vibes but it's actually somehow perfect. Holmes says so much with one note. I was watching when he was hitting the edge of the snare in one song and it was so perfect and sharp and elegant. And when the three of them sing – Lanois kept saying, "Let's go to church," it is golden. It is essential.
Lanois played a new song he just wrote in response to the various military actions, from the perspective of someone whose building has just been bombed and they are at the bottom of a pile of rubble with their child. I think that the various people around me who were there because it was part of their subscription package were not expecting that, but – despite much consternation over the fact that there was no intermission tonight – they were far more respectful of all the art and the artists than the bozo in the balcony who kept doing that shrill whistle thing we should have left back in the 70's. I'm sure he thought he was awesome.
[Runner up goes to the woman who emerged from the wings stage right at the end of the show and proceeded to point at the audience, dance around, and at one point, take a big hit off a joint. (The local dispo is named YOUR HIGHNESS and it took me a minute. Lanois even referenced it later when referring to the name of the venue.]
This is the kind of show that breathes, it will shift with the mood or the news or the weather and I'm envious of the folks who were clearly following the tour. It's going around Canada in a routing that people sitting near me found curious (when they went to his instagram account to see where he'd come from and where he was off to next) but most likely has to do with simple venue availability. These are not large distances to travel.
Which is why I was there, as I tried to explain to the border guards on either side. "Daniel Lanois? He's a Canadian musician? He produced Bob Dylan and U2? Emnylou Harris? No, he's not touring the US." I am grateful for the noise and the notes and the sounds and the vibrations of this particular night, grateful that I made myself show up, for the music and also for my own damn heart.
