It would seem as though someone had stumbled upon a magic binding Spell Book of Enchantment and summoned nineties classic rockers 'The Tea Party', to rise back to the stage for 'Summer In the Park'.
It would seem as though someone had stumbled upon a magic binding Spell Book of Enchantment and summoned nineties classic rockers 'The Tea Party', to rise back to the stage for 'Summer In the Park'.
The established and world renowned musical act hit the Waterfront's centre stage a week ago Saturday, bringing back memories of a time when music "was just that good."
The band's own sound of heavy rock and odd time signatures, reminiscent of Led Zeppelin, had the crowd swaying and lost in a rich and creamy sonic groove.
After all, it's 2011 and the awakening of the deep, smouldering and earthy melodic tones of 'The Tea Party's Jeff Martin was a welcomed surprise.
The lead singer's persona; a gorgeous, sexy mixture of pirate Jack Sparrow and Jim Morrison, really brought a frothy bout of old fashioned, mystical Rock and Roll.
Intrinsically woven like a middle eastern carpet, the Moroccan influence on the rhythms and tones of the band have a hazy, whimsical, taunting effect on what one would expect to be a classic rock sound.
Let's face it, 'The Tea Party' could play anywhere in the exotic world and fit right in.
While at the best of times, difficult to put a label on, 'The Tea Party's' dark, throaty sound might be, at best, bottled up as a fine, classic, encrypted black label. Hypnotic, rhythmic and grinding, their music has a spiritual thought fullness akin to 'The Doors' and always hints at perception as having the last laugh.
Not that I could totally grasp a meaning. I don't think you need to. Sometimes you just know when it's good and generally speaking, that's all you need to know. Then again, maybe I don't want to truly know what's in 'the tea'.
The band seems to live up to the party aspect of their name as well, with the music; a dreamy, spell binding, sonic tale, weaving of adventure and intrigue.
This, combined with the bigger than life appearance of the 6 '3' lead singer, really puts a powerful presence on the stage, skillfully pounding out pure gourmet Rock and Roll.
Seriously, Jeff Martin and the rest of the band would be a shoe in for the next 'Pirates of the Caribbean' tale. Their full characters ring true to a modern, seasoned, road worn rock pirate full of story tales and folklore. You'd be well advised to catch these real life characters on a stage near you.
Baytoday's Jamie Lyle caught up with the band while in the Bay and had the chance to talk with the party's lead vocalist and chief instigator, Jeff Martin.
Lyle: Did you enjoy your performance?
Martin: Ya. WE certainly did. It's a lovely venue. Looking over the Vista. It was pretty cool. Took a bit to get the audience into it. It was a bit of a shock at first. You know, because "The Tea Party's" music is...would it be an understatement to say it's a bit heavy? I think a lot of people in the lawn chairs were like, "Whoa". But once we got friendly with them and they knew that they weren't going to hurt them, everything was fine.
Lyle: When one thinks of 'The Tea Party', one would think Canadian and yet you've moved to Australia. What's the differences between Canadian and Australian audiences?
Martin: I'll tell you, the Australian audience doesn't tolerate mediocrity. One of my favourite stories is... you know the band 'Oasis', right? Their always like, "We're the greatest rock and roll band in the world!" Then they go to Australia and they get sent home with their tail between their legs. Because they suck. So, the thing that "The Tea Party" has always prided ourselves on is the integrity in the music to the extent that it's probably one of the reasons that we never broke into the American markets. We weren't really ready to play the game and to dumb our music down, you know? It's got to be honest. It's really got to come from the place where, collectively, our hearts are all at.
Lyle: You don't have an album out right now, but you're touring in order to 'feel it out', so to speak. How do you go through that process?
Martin: It's been 6 or 7 years since the three of us played together and we're certainly very much enjoying it, getting back together for this tour here in Canada. The next step will be for me to bring the boys to Australia, probably in February of the new year. After that tour, then I think it will be time, if every thing's very good and we're still getting along, brothers again, then it will be time to make some new music. In order to do that, that's going to take, certainly from my part, a lot out of me because I'm going to have to do some traveling and go back to places like Morocco, Egypt, India, just to soak it all up again. The band has set the bar so high with albums like "The Edges of Twilight" and "Transmission" that it has to be better than anything that we've done in the past.
