Intimate and Acoustic

The name St. Lucia often brings to mind images of white sandy beaches, cocktails with umbrellas, clear blue water and leaving your cares behind you.

That is, unless you were at the Mod Club on Thursday May 16, 2019.

St. Lucia, the New York based band, performed an intimate and acoustic concert for a nearly sold out crowd.

St. Lucia is the brainchild of Jean-Philip Grobler, a native of South Africa, now living, and creating, in Brooklyn, NY.

Grobler grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa where he sang with the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir. He was making music from the time he was 12, experimenting with different sounds and different artists.

At 19, Grobler moved to Liverpool, England, and studied music at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts before moving to Brooklyn, New York, where he met fellow band mates Nicky Paul, Ross Clark, Dustin Kaufman, Nick Brown and Patricia Beranek.

When trying to come up with a name for their music project, Grobler consulted a map of South Africa and blind pointed at locations. On the fifth attempt, he landed on St. Lucia, which is a resort town in South Africa where Grobler spent holidays as a child. I suppose it is a better band name than, say, Johannesburg, Capetown or Soweto. Though Soweto has a bit of a nice ring to it, I think.

In 2012, Grobler married bandmate Patti Beranek, and in 2017, welcomed their first child, son Indiana “Indy” Grobler, who joins his parents on tour, being cared for by an attentive nanny while mom and dad are on stage.

St. Lucia has carved themselves a place in today’s music community. A mix of pop, synth and alternative music, their sound is unique and energetic. Their concerts are usually full of energy, choreographed light shows and fans dancing and jumping in the venues. In all the St. Lucia concerts I’ve been to, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone sitting down. Though, often, they play the Danforth Music Hall when in Toronto, and the Danforth has no seating on the floor level. We usually get seats up in the mezzanine. They’re great for putting our jackets on because St. Lucia’s music doesn’t allow for sitting.

Their three albums, “When the Night”, “Matter”, and “Hyperion” are fantastic trips through musical genres. Each album has shown how the band has grown with their music and learned to take chances with style.

And just when it was thought that they had reached an apex, the band decided that last spring they would embark on an intimate and acoustic tour, which came through Toronto on May 16.

“It’s like coming home,” Grobler said in an interview, of the band’s visits to Toronto.

“The city is so cosmopolitan and energetic,” he adds. “We have great friends here, and we always enjoy playing to the Toronto crowds.”

Toronto seems to luck out when it comes to St. Lucia shows. The band comes through at least once a year.

St. Lucia concerts are usually very energetic but Grobler stated, when asked in interview, that the band was experimenting, again, with a pared down version of a tour. They decided to see how much they could do without.

The May 16th show was the eighth show of the tour, and they’d learned early on how much they could leave behind and still have a great set. And boy did they!

After singing "Happy Birthday" to the lead singer, Michael Ford, Jr. of Airpark Band, the opening act, St. Lucia opened their set with “We Got It Wrong”, off their first album “When the Night”. Grobler also performed a medley of Paul Simon’s “Graceland” moving into “Wait For Love” off “When The Night”. Other favourites such as “Bigger”, written for Grobler and Beranek’ son Indy, “China Shop” and “Dancing on Glass” off the album “Matter”, “Walking Away” off “Hyperion”. The show concluded with a three song encore including “Paper Heart”, “Tokyo”, and fan favourite, “Elevate”.

It is safe to say that this intimate and acoustic experiment was a roaring success.

It remains to be seen what 2020 will bring for this incredibly talented band.