I played Dorchester, Ontario, in an old barn, a beautiful old barn attached to an old farmhouse, all of it organized and held together by Brent Jones and a couple hundred years of agricultural optimism. Brent grew up there and treated the place the way Peter Gabriel treated Real World Studios: assume your surroundings are not an obstacle to making art but the reason to make it there. Brent records his own albums at Real World. This means he successfully connected a farm in Dorchester, to Peter Gabriel’s English kingdom only by connecting music and a suspiciously long extension chord. Inside was a cute old baby grand piano, apparently donated. One of the unexpected consequences of the digital-piano age. Acoustic pianos, once considered major family investments, now given away like zucchini in August. The concert was videotaped by the local cable network using four cameras. Four! In a barn! There I was, playing a donated baby grand beneath old wooden beams while a local cable crew changed camera angles with the seriousness of a moon landing. I wondered am I performing in 2026 or 1976? The answer may be both. Piano from the past, cameras from the future, and a barn, wisely, refusing to participate in time.
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