LIVE WIRE: "There's certainly a devil, and he knows my name..."

(In case you were wondering, he slept like a baby. © 2008 Benjamin Luk.)

The devil may know his name, but if you don't know the name of Daniel Johnston, you probably deserve to be drug out into the street and shot. More popular now than ever before thanks to the 2005 documentary film The Devil and Daniel Johnston (which documents the man's entire life and career, from his rise to stardom to his fall from grace as a result of drug abuse and rampant manic depression), Daniel has finally come out of hiding since his troubled years in the 90's and is now touring, living his childhood dream of becoming a rock star and the stuff of folk legend.

At first, I had a hard time placing why Daniel was touring. As far as I knew, Daniel hadn't recorded anything new since 2005, so why tour now? And what would he play? New material or classics from his halcyon days? Once I took the time to revisit his documentary after the concert however, it became painfully obvious. The vast majority of what he played at his Vancouver show on April 19th, 2008 at Richard's on Richards were songs featured very prominently in the film. In other words -- though I'd hate to simplify things to such an extent -- Daniel Johnston was there to capitalize on the success of the film, and he did that by treating the documentary soundtrack as a new album of sorts, promoting it as any other performer would promote the release of a new LP in an effort to gain new fans. And I'd be lying if I said it didn't work.

The tragicomic, almost-Faustian tale of Daniel Johnston is one that certainly helps to contextualize his Vancouver performance. I could sense the initial unease of the room when Dan first appeared and wobbled his way to the mic, shaking head to toe like someone with an advanced case of Parkinson's. Lovingly, he placed a songbook of his lyrics on the music stand in front of him, handling it like a classical composer about to perform his magnum opus. With the help of his acoustic guitarist, we were then treated to samples of his more approachable early work, including "Life in Vain", "Living Life", "Silly Love" and "The Beatles". He then crooned along to a cover of The Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away", which everyone naturally sang along to -- "FINALLY, SOMETHING WE KNOW!!!" said the kids -- before announcing that he would be taking a short break. I can't possibly imagine what that break was for. I also can't imagine how anyone could go through four bottles of water in just half an hour.

When Dan came back, he came back with a band. Which sounds good on paper but in reality, was a bit like spiking Bailey's with beer. The absolutely soulless backing band may as well have been doing cover songs at Happy Hour in some equally soulless pub where the lonely go to drink and the drunks go to brood. Heck, they even went so far as to bring the beardo guitarist in the fedora. You know, the one who's in every fucking pub band ever?!? Actually, I'm not being fair to the beardo. He was probably the most talented one there, peppering Daniel's music with the occasional warbling solo that would later turn "Rock & Roll / EGA" into the pounding, foot-stomping finale it was. By the way, for all those who were wondering, the 'EGA' bit in the song title means nothing more significant than the E-G-A chord progression in the last half of the song. Special thanks to Your Subculture Soundtrack for straightening that out.

Daniel's encore consisted of his usual closing anthem: "True Love Will Find You in the End". A particularly brilliant and soulful song, it appears that Daniel's taken some note of the many covers of this tune since its initial recording in 1984 on Retired Boxer, and made an effort to tone down the enthusiastic strumming that I personally felt to be a weakness of his original. (I have a soft spot for the Matthew Good version myself.) Finally, as another staple of Daniel's live show, he got the crowd to sing along with him a cappella to "Devil Town".

Overall, this was a show that seemed shorter than what we should've gotten for the $30 ticket price, but to many, you just can't put a price on seeing a living legend on what could very well be one of his last tours.