John Wesley at Brutopia. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Originally published by L.S. Media. April 13th 2011.

For those straying off the beaten track whilst attending the Marillion convention in Montreal would have been thrilled to see John Wesley performing at The Brutopia pub in Crescent Street. For his army of fans in Britain, the chances of catching Wes, as he is affectionately known, are rare, for those who had travelled from all over North America to catch the convention it was a case of less is more.

Arriving on stage John Wesley may give the appearance of a disheveled peacekeeper but once he picks up that guitar he holds the attention span of his audience like no other.

Opening the afternoon with a laid back instrumental had the packed out Brutopia in a sort of rapture, a state very few artists manage to do even when on stage confronted by 5’000 screaming fans. There could have been no more than a couple of hundred people in the small venue, every available space was crammed with a fan or the odd waitress trying their best to serve beer and chips whilst taking one look sideways to take in, even briefly, Wes’s set.

Wes performed to great acclaim a version of Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing in between his own Please Come Back to Me and You Said No, the latter from his debut album Under the Red and White Sky.

The majority of the set was taken up with songs from his new album The Lilypad Suite, including the sensuous Firelight. For most in the audience, it was a first chance to hear these well written songs and the look on the faces of the crowd told Wes and his producer Dean Tidey all they had to know about the reaction of the crowd and their appreciation of catching a rare John Wesley acoustic gig.

John Wesley finished his set with the Peter Gabriel classic In Your Eyes which had those who braved the busy shopping area of Rue Sainte-Catherine to get to Brutopia joining in superbly for quite a while, causing Wes to repeat a section or two of one of Peter’s finest songs.

A laid back afternoon filled with the sublime guitar playing of one of Florida’s favourite sons, a must see for those lucky enough to be in Montreal.

Ian D. Hall