County blues

Jeremie Albino draws full house to Regent

Acapacity audience gave a warm welcome to Jeremie Albino as the headliner on the Regent stage on Saturday night. His career has continued on an upward arc since the release of his debut CD, Hard Time, in August 2019. He has toured across Canada, along the US west coast, and solo in Europe. He will be travelling to Texas in March, followed by a tour through Europe in May with his full band. The young singer has a voice that evokes the smoky bluesmen of a bygone era. He has a confident stage presence, and is as much at ease playing a solo ballad with guitar and harmonica as he is leading a full-voiced anthem in front of his band. The opening act for the concert was Dave Monks, former frontman for Tokyo Police Club, and he was accompanied by Alison McNamara. The pair played a selection of tracks from Monks’ CD On A Wave, plus a couple of older tunes, including Gasoline. The light indie-pop sound was well received by a legion of Monks fans in the audience, and set the stage for the decidedly more up-tempo rhythms from Albino. Many of the songs on Albino’s CD were written while he was working on farms here in the County, and there is definitely an earthy feel to them. One of the crowd-pleasers of the night was Lilac Way, a nod to the County’s lilac season.

Alison McNamara plays during the opening act with Dave Monks.

Albino’s on-stage persona is almost antipodean to his speaking demeanour. He is soft-spoken and a touch reserved, but his love of music and performing shows through. “Music is in my blood,” he said. “My mum and dad have always been music fans. I started playing the harmonica when I was young, and any instrument I could pick up, I just wanted to learn and fall in love with. I also realized that I loved singing. I’ve always been a bit of a performer. Just writing songs and singing from your heart, it’s a good feeling.” He said that his inspiration for writing music comes from everyday life with family and friends as well as from the music he loves to listen to. “I like to emulate some of what they do,” he said. “It also just naturally comes to me. A lot of my songs have been written here in the County, through my time just living here. All of these things go hand in hand with where you come from, where you are living and what surrounds you.”

For the most part of his young career Albino had been performing solo, and with his debut CD he had to figure out how to work with a band. “It’s a lot of fun. It’s like a big family,” he said. “I’m now playing with my own band, but also playing with different openers, and you kind of grow your musical family. It’s a pleasure playing with everyone and they’re all great musicians and great people.” He describes his music as being “old-school, old soul, Americana folk and roots” and he is grateful for the musical opportunities that have come his way. “I’m really lucky to have all these things happening. It’s a lot of work, and we want to keep hustling and seize things by the horns and keep trying to build so I can keep making this career,” he said. “I’m really lucky to say I’m a musician and that I make my living off making my music. I’d like to keep that going and grow my audience and be able to write more songs that connect with people. The more I work towards that, the more I’ll be able to make a life for myself in the long run.”