Press: Spill Magazine, Joseph Live at The Great Hall

Only hours after taping their The Ellen Show appearance and hitting over 5 million listens for a single song on Spotify, Joseph shared the new music that is bringing them growing acclaim, and that singular sister act sound, with a captivated The Great Hall audience including Spill Magazine.

Joseph brought their signature, intricate harmonies to warm an otherwise chilly October Tuesday evening at Toronto’s newly renovated Great Hall on October 25, 2016. It was their only Canadian stop on their latest tour. The audience, mesmerized, sang along to the rising Portland indie rock trio’s songs from their second album, I’m Alone, No You’re Not (ATO Records). Brian Kesley and Will Tendy backed Joseph sisters Natalie, Meegan and Allie Closner. William Wild from Knoxville, Tennessee was the opening act.

Natalie Closner, the guitarist-singer-songwriter and eldest sister of the talented family trio grounded the powerful band with her energetic, foot-stomping rhythms and edgy vocals. The twins, Meeg (often centre stage) and Allie, along with Natalie filled the venue’s cathedral ceilings with their soaring, ethereal harmonies that have earned Joseph its much-deserved breakout success.

The Great Hall stage recalled a venue in Nashville – the city where Natalie honed her musical craft. The concert’s sequence of songs, including a cover of “Moonlight Mile” by The Rolling Stones, blended seamlessly while building toward the group’s current hit single “White Flag.” Joseph’s encore closed with two members of William Wild joining to sing “Sweet Dreams,” a song dedicated to the sisters’ mother. Near the end of the show, Natalie explained that Toronto was their first and only show without their drummer, who unfortunately got turned away at the border due to Visa issues; his absence was hardly noticed, however, due to the band’s tight musicianship.” READ FULL STORY 

Get Spill Magazine’s full interview with Natalie Closner of Joseph here.

Please Vote: NOW Toronto Readers’ Choice Awards 2016

In the midst of our restoration and renovation, The Great Hall is very honoured to have been nominated again as a 2016 NOW Toronto Readers’ Choice Awards finalist, in the “Music: Best Concert Hall” category.

You pick the best of the city! It’s time to vote for The Great Hall and the other best of Toronto nominees across 6 categories and 180+ awards.

After getting more than 20,000 nominations for the best personalities and businesses across the city, NOW Toronto has posted the final contenders for NOW Readers Choice to be named “Toronto’s best” – as chosen by you!

To vote for The Great Hall and all your other favourites click here — and be sure to scroll down to the Best Concert Hall category.

You can vote for every single sub-category if you’d like. This is the NOW Readers Choice poll after all: you are the expert. Share what you think should be recognized in Toronto and be sure to promote your picks on social media with the hashtag #NOWReadersChoice.

NOW Toronto Readers’ Choice Awards voting closes on September 16, 2016. Winners will be announced in  early November. Rock the vote NOW Toronto!

And if you haven’t been to The Great Hall lately, be sure to check our event calendar and pick up tickets for an upcoming concert or show to enjoy our four venues with all new A/V, air conditioning, bars, restored heritage décor and accessible facilities.

Press: The Toronto Star, Julia Holter keeps us lost in her wilderness

The Toronto Star previews Julia Holter’s sold-out March 4, 2016 performance at The Great Hall.

“You can always count on Julia Holter for a change in direction. Her fourth album, last year’s Have You in My Wilderness, marks a notable departure from her earlier, more avant-garde work. Rather than being centralized around a theme, like 2011’s Tragedy (the Euripedes play Hippolytus), 2012’s Ekstasis (author Virginia Woolf, in part) and 2013’s Loud City Song (the 1958 movie musical Gigi), this collection of ethereal electronic-fueled songs is simply that: a collection of ethereal electronic-fuelled songs.

Holter, who will perform at the Great Hall on Friday and whose album topped a number of year-end Top 10 lists, says some of the compositions were simply awaiting proper fermentation before their release was considered.

“I started writing these songs a while ago and I guess this album was asking to be made because . . . I guess I just wanted to make sort of like a collection of ’60s pop ballads or something . . . just love songs, basically,” a distracted-sounding Holter said over the phone, somewhere between Ohio and Minneapolis.

“I didn’t try to do it for awhile, but I think that my projects are kind of like in different realms. It didn’t make sense to do a record of ballads while I was doing Loud City Song or Tragedy: those were more immediate concerns at the time as I already had a collection of songs that fit on those records.”

Naming three ballads, “Sea Calls Me Home,” “Betsy on the Roof” and the title track as the catalysts to completing Have You in My Wilderness, Holter rejects the notion that her newer material is more “accessible.”’ READ FULL STORY

For the full line-up of current events, concerts and shows at The Great Hall, click calendar.

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