Julia Jacklin & Katy Kirby
September 21st, 2022
Phoenix Concert Theatre, Toronto
Canadian Beats Passport
Last Wednesday night, Julia Jacklin returned to Toronto after a few unexpected days off her Pre-Pleasure Tour. Katy Kirby supported her with a special solo performance as opposed her usual full band arrangement. Julia muscled through some illness throughout the set but gave the Phoenix Concert Theatre a raw, heartfelt, and unforgettable performance.
Opening the night was Katy Kirby with a stripped-down solo set. Her debut album Cool Dry Place grabbed listeners with its sparkling arrangement of guitar lines and drums but hearing her play those songs by herself made her lyricism and songwriting all the more potent.
Katy opened her set with “Juniper”—a song that Katy has said touches on intergenerational knowledge and heredity. Katy softly picked and stummed her guitar while singing the lines “True blue Juniper, never got around to asking her the difference between weeds and herbs and flower.” Even with a nearly sold-out venue, the crowd was quiet and attentive for the duration of Katy’s set. The room was quiet enough to hear the slight shuffle of feet or the opening of a beer can in the distance. Her words have a way of bundling up a life story in a small quote with little context. Katy played Tap Twice and the in the quiet of the room you heard her sing “I see you in the future, you look just the same but older. And I wave to you, but I don’t slow my pace.”
In between songs, Katy would reveal some her quirks to the audience. She said it was nice to be on tour with a fellow alliterate name, referencing how both her and Julia’s first and last names share the same respective letters (KK and JJ). She then asked if there’s anyone else in the crowd that has alliterate names but said “Don’t say it out loud, just raise your hand or something” which got a big laugh from the audience.
Katy ended her set with the song “Portals” and half-jokingly warned the crowd to not hug their loved ones during the song, as it causes her to choke up and mess up her performance. Katy explained that there’s a lot of loved ones she misses while she’s on the road and it gets a bit unbearable for her at times. Katy then made the crowd laugh by threatening to kick anybody out who starts hugging. With the crowd respecting her wishes, Katy sang the lines “Our arms form a circle, and sometimes when they take that shape, suddenly I’m in a tunnel into another state.” Katy then thanked the crowd as an applause sent her off.
Julia Jacklin walked on stage by herself as the audience welcomed her on. Somebody from the crowd shouted, “How are you feeling?!” and Julia replied with “…Look…” as the audience laughed. Julia was just recovering from a couple days of having influenza. After having to cancel a couple shows in the tour, this was her first time back on stage. Julia confessed to the crowd saying, “I don’t feel great…but I feel great” and they cheered. Julia opened her set solo with the song “Comfort”—the closing track of her beloved record Crushing. There was something fitting in the way she sang the words “You’ll be okay, you’ll be alright. You’ll get well soon, sleep through the night”. She then began to play “Be Careful With Yourself” as her band walked on and joined in after the first verse, surprising the audience.
Next in the set was “Head Alone”— another fan-favourite which had the room screaming “I don’t wanna be touched all the time, I raise my body up to be mine”. Julia set her guitar down and traded it for a pair of wooden claves. Her and the band went on to play “Love, Try Not To Let Go” as she would extend her arms out and bring them back in towards her chest while singing. She would knock the claves sparingly at key moments in the song with a smile.
While Julia had been putting on a tremendous show, she was still battling some of her illness and at one point, it became too much for her. Her and the band had to stop halfway through “Pool Party”. She shyly asked the crowd if she could take a few minutes backstage to collect herself and switch out of her in-ear monitors. The crowd cheered and encouraged her to take as much time as she needed.
After a couple minutes, Julia and her band returned to the stage and started “Pool Party” from the beginning with the crowd still singing along. Even while struggling through the set, Julia’s voice was the center piece of the night. Her soft but strong vibrato made her notes and words linger. Singing additional vocal rolls and high notes that aren’t on her original recordings also proved that Julia was going above and beyond.
Julia still made time to have fun with the crowd and joked about some of her past experiences in Toronto. This included writing “Ignore Tenderness” in a Toronto apartment between two Tim Hortons (“just like everywhere else in Toronto” she said). She also spoke of her last Toronto show when she was being excessively messaged by a man in the crowd trying to have her meet him and his girlfriend at a pub.
The remainder of Julia’s set had so many special moments: The way she would clench her fists during “I Was Neon” or run her hand across the chimes on stage during “Ignore Tenderness”. She brought the night to a close with “Pressure To Party” which had the audience moving from side to side, bobbing their heads, and shouting the words back at her. As the crowd gave their final applause and her band walked off stage, she folded her hands together beside her cheek and thanked the crowd for being so kind.
