Alan Doyle from Petty Harbour at the Danforth Music Hall

I really enjoyed this review of the Alan Doyle’s solo performance at the Danforth Music Hall from the Toronto Sun. The Danforth Music Hall has been the site of many brilliant Great Big Sea concerts over the years including the first concert of Great Big Sea XX.

I loved this concert as Alan Doyle has clearly come into his own as his plays more and more of his own music from Boy on Bridge and his latest album So Let’s Go.

A Music Blog, Yea? Concerts Photos: Alan Doyle @ The Danforth Music Hall – Toronto (February 5 2015) has some amazing black and white photographs by Angleo Archini of Alan Doyle and the band.

Solo Alan Doyle concert has a lot to offer by Jane Stevenson7 February 2015 Toronto Sun

In his mind, the sometime co-lead singer of Canadian folk rockers Great Big Sea, is still “Alan Doyle from Petty Harbour” despite a successful 20 year GBS career and now rising solo stardom. 

And always will be I think.

So when the 45-year-old Doyle was in front of a sold-out crowd at the Danforth Music hall on Friday night, in support of his just released second solo album, So Let’s Go, you could tell there were times when his mind was being blown.

Like when Blue rodeo co-lead singer Jim Cuddy walked onstage to sing and harmonize sweetly with him on Northern Plains from Doyle’s first solo album 2012’s Boy on Bridge.

“I don’t know what you were doing in high school, but I was in Petty harbour wishing I could sing on a record with Jim Cuddy.” he said afterwards genuinely in awe of the moment.

Or when actor Gordon Pinsent walked down the aisle to give him a friendly wave. 

You’d certainly be hard pressed to find a Canadian musician with a sweeter disposition.

He never seems to take any of his success for granted and is very likeable as a result.

To wit, Doyle wisely bookended his show singing alone a capella, beginning with Dream of Home and ending with Where I Belong, showing of his biggest strength- his big opened hearted presence.

Then he was joined by a five piece band – with special mention to MVP and west coaster Kendel Carson on fiddle, guitar and backing vocals “she all makes us stand up a little straighter,” said Doyle by way of band intros – and occasionally a dancer of two, starting with (appropriately), I Cant Dance Without You.

Doyle also has loads of passion that was on full display when he tackled I’m A Sailor with just him and keyboardist Todd Lumley kicking off the encore.

And while it was the more animated songs of both the GBS and solo variety When I’m Up, Dance, Dance, I’ve Seen A Little, Sins of A Saturday Night, old Black Rum, Run Runaway, Testify and Ordinary Day, that got the crowd up on their feet and singing and dancing for most of the evening – divided into two sets separated by a half-hour intermission – Doyle could handle a ballad too like When The Nightingales Sing or Laying Down To Perish.

He also covered John Mellencamp’s Paper In Fire and knew how to deliver a line, like recalling how he an actor Russell Crowe wrote Hit The Ground for a scene in a film about a shotgun wedding on the Australian actors farm, “We MAY have been drinking.

But he let the audience know by the end that “on a night like this, in a place like this, with people like you,” you meant a lot to him.