A funky jazz concert will help raise money to support the arts in downtown Nanaimo this weekend.
The Old City Arts Hub will present the Deadly Nightshades on Saturday, April 19, at St. Andrew’s United Church. The Old City Arts Hub is a non-profit organization established this year operating out of the church and aiming to provide space for performances and other arts.
“It’s profound because it is not just for us, it is for so many other groups in this town that will be able to use that space," said Graham Shonwise, who plays bass with the Deadly Nightshades. “It does have excellent acoustics as well, comfortable seating, good sightlines to the stage and it’s in the downtown core in the Old City Quarter. It is just one of these things that would be very beneficial to the community at large for performing arts.”
His band will perform covers of D’Angelo, Leon Bridges, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, the Meters, Sharon Jones, and others in a stripped-down style.
“The original recording we are covering are highly produced and often layered with string and orchestral arrangements or with horns but this is more of a quartet style where it’s just drums, bass, keyboard and voice and because of that space we are able to strip it down to its fundamentals,” Shonwise said.
The Deadly Nightshades also feature Angela Wilson on vocals, Hans Verhoeven on drums and Nick Peck on keyboard.
“There is a lot of communication happening and openness with the arrangement, it’s not tight. Each time we play a song it’s not necessarily going to be the same and so in a way it’s very improvisational around the board,” Shonwise said.
Though the group plays together frequently, they are debuting the new name the Deadly Nightshades as a nod to the late musician John Forrest. Forrest premiered his band by that name in 2011 at a Salvation Army fundraiser show at the Queen's.
“Now we are basically doing another benefit premiering our band,” Shonwise said. “We get an opportunity to pay it forward, pay respect to this guy that got Hans started and then by extension myself and then Angela. It is all still coming from John Forrest from beyond the grave and I think that is pretty special.”
This will be the second benefit concert for the Old City Arts Hub. Proceeds are going toward renovating the space to make it more capable of hosting a variety of arts and entertainment.
Showtime is 3 p.m. on April 19. Tickets can be purchased from http://eventbrite.com or at Windowseat Books for $30.
