Three Performances of John Mann

This week brought me news of the death of singer and performer John Mann of Spirit of the West. I had the good fortune to see Mann perform on 3 different occasions.

The first time was the summer of 1989 when I was planting trees in Northern B.C.  We drove from Prince George to McBride British Columbia and then killed time strumming a guitar in the parking lot while we waited for the show to begin.  We watched a lovely performance of Spirit of the west as they played to a crowd of 50 or 60 people in a corner of the local hockey arena.  The floor in front of the stage was open and young children swayed back and forth to the music. On the way home we ran out of gas in the car we had borrowed and had to wait all night at a gas station until it opened.  The night sky was electric with the northern lights from one end to the other all night long, shimmering green tie-dyed with light.  It was a good night.

The second was a classic rollicking performance by Spirit of the West at the Commodore Ballroom where the dance floor floats on a bed of tires giving you an automatic 6 inch bounce to your dance step.  The perfect venue for the impassioned and aggressively energetic performance style that the Mann was known for. We bounced along.

The last time I saw Mann perform was during a wonderful piece of theatre that he collaborated on with the playwright Morris Panych called 2BWutUR.  This was, if I recall correctly a coming of age story through the years of high school. They fairly nailed the experience - and I felt like they had been borrowing from my unwritten biography.  Mann and another performer sat in the open top of a partially constructed 15 foot tall head located upstage centre, a metaphor for the construction of an identity. It was a fun and brilliant combination of theatre and original music. A magical night of music and theatre.

Through these 3 experiences, I got to see a number of the facets of Mann as a performer and I enjoyed each thoroughly.  Though gone to soon, he gave us a lot while he was with us, and put his songs out there while the sun was still shining.  May we all do as well with our songs.