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Meaghan Smith Gives Fans A Little Love in Vancouver
by Nadya Vlassoff
 After
getting an advanced listen to The Cricket’s Orchestra,
the debut album of self proclaimed shy girl Meaghan
Smith, I was eager see and hear how The Cricket’s
songs would play to a live audience when Smith
rolled into Vancouver on Friday, November 6 at
the River Rock Casino. As I mentioned exactly one month
prior to Smith's Vancouver show, "The Cricket’s
Orchestra" is one of the most diverse and sophisticated
albums of the year, as Smith bears her soul in
an 11 track musical kaleidoscope that dances delicately
between a variety of genres and decades, featuring
country, jazz, and even a few chords reminiscent
of the Lindy hop 1920s cabaret scene.
A hush fell over the crowd as Smith’s husband, Jason Mingo, filled the theatre with soft guitar chords before Meaghan Smith quickly charmed her way into the hearts of her audience as a set of sweet and sincere storytelling began. Taking to the stage in a pink, vintage 1930s era dress, Meaghan Smith was all substance in the simplest yet ethereal form.
With only Meaghan Smith and her husband on stage for the nine song set, each told a distinct story, which Smith expressed with childlike wonder. Girlish giggles accompanied various song introductions, including "You Got Out", a track that Smith admitted was about a former boyfriend who was released from prison and thought they were still in a relationship throughout his incarceration.
While the majority of Meaghan Smith’s songs from The Cricket’s Orchestra center around love lost, the stories behind them mirror the lyrics with honest care. The song, "If You Ask Me", was written for a former flame whom Meaghan fell in love with solely for his talent to dance. He was, "an awful boyfriend", Smith told the amused crowd. The truth behind Smith’s words struck a relatable chord in many who obviously remembered a bad dating experience in their own lives.
 Much
like her debut album, which recalls the days
of jazz legends Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald,
the live musical journey of Meaghan Smith took
the audience through the sound of the 1920s
to the '30s and '40s in a unique yet simple
contemporary arrangement on stage. More tracks
from The Cricket’s Orchestra followed, including
"A Little Love", "Poor", and "Hearbroken", each
with their own cautionary tale about the perils
of love and relationships. As the set ventured
deeper in the soul of Meaghan Smith, the songs
became more personally accessible to the crowd,
as each revealed relatable private moments that
Meaghan Smith was able to translate so well
into music both on and off the stage.
In a surprise that best reflected the throwback layers of Smith’s music and personal tone of the evening, Meaghan and her husband gave the crowd a cover of the well loved classic, "Fly Me to the Moon", made famous by the legendary Frank Sinatra and covered by so many other artists since its original release in 1954. The final song of the night, "Five More Minutes", filled with the childlike lust for life of wanting the day to last forever, had the crowd wishing they had five more minutes with Meaghan Smith.
 Although
The Cricket’s Orchestra takes fans on a journey
into the elegant lyrical heart of Meaghan Smith,
the live presence of Meaghan Smith gives the
album a deeper, more profound sense of honesty
thanks to the many back stories from the songwriter
herself. As mentioned when I discovered Meaghan
Smith for the first time, her debut is ambitious
and far reaching in quality as The Cricket’s
Orchestra paints like a collection of Claude
Monet’s impressionist works sprinkled with a
touch of innocence, elegant yet simple. And
that's exactly the impression Meaghan Smith
left on Vancouver.
Set List:
I Know
If You Ask Me
A Little Love
Poor
Heartbroken
Soft Touch
You Got Out
Fly Me to the Moon
Five More Minutes
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