Lelith Ross at the Bronson Theater

Words & photos by Edie Olender

My friends asked me what I thought of the Leith Ross show at the Bronson Centre, and I did not know how to answer. I am in my early twenties, but it seemed I was one of the oldest in the room. Being surrounded by laughing teenagers ages you ten years right there and then. Although there was something about the crowd that made me want to cry, something about the sweetness of being sixteen with so much free time to fill with interesting people and places. Perhaps there was a bitterness in myself as I wondered what do these kids know of grief, the latter being a major theme of Ross’ new album I Can See the Future. However, the same question could be asked of myself: what do I know of grief at twenty-two years old?

When you’re twenty-two years old, you stay up to two A.M. whispering with your best friend before she moves away indefinitely the next day. You see your parents at Christmastime and notice the new grey hairs and the lipomas on the dog. You do not know how to feel when you visit your grandmother who no longer recognizes you. You eat borscht whenever you are sad because it reminds me of your other grandmother who is dead. You stand in a crowded auditorium full of kids screaming out lyrics because what else do you have to do on a Friday night when you are twenty-two years old? 

I wonder what it feels like for twenty-seven-year-old Ross, who is playing their hometown show after touring across Canada. Ross attended Canterbury High School, the arts school in Ottawa. At the show, a group of Canterbury kids yelled out that one of the high school teachers says hello. What a strange time capsule it must be to come back to the town you grew up in and see that everything has changed without anything really changing at all. It’s a phenomenon I notice when I visit my own hometown; the streets are the same, and the lights reflect off the pavement the way I remember from my childhood, yet the city no longer feels like it is welcoming me home when I take the highway off-ramp. How do you make a city feel like home again? Maybe you host a concert and sing the songs that you wrote a decade ago when you never thought you would get over your high school crush. 

It is possible to love something without grieving it at the very same time? During the show, Ross explained that their mother often says that she wants a living wake. She wants to hear the funny stories people tell and share in their reminiscence. This led into the song “Grieving,” during which Ross sings “Like how my mother says that funerals / Have the timing down all wrong / You say so much to a person, only after they are gone.” Ross also explained that the loss of a loved one has reshaped how they value their current relationships: “So I never will stop grieving / Everything that’s yet to die / I think I’ll love after I’m dead / And I’ll grieve while I’m alive.” 

Looking around the crowd, you would perhaps think it was a living wake. Mid-way through the set, Ross’ band exits the stage, leaving them alone with just their acoustic guitar for one song. “Orlando” is chosen as a special request; teenagers with runny mascara are holding each other as each note rings out. Rather than being a concert at all, the moment became both a funeral and a living wake as each individual connected with the lyrics in their own way, mourning both what has passed and what is to come. 

The opener was Wyatt C. Louis, a Cree singer-songwriter from Calgary, Alberta. Their leg of the tour with Ross is wrapping up shortly, and they said that they were excited to go home and reflect on the experience. I thought this was a very beautiful sentiment – to be excited about the ending of something because it means you can then re-experience it more deeply through contemplation. Perhaps it is okay that my best friend is moving away. Perhaps it is okay my parents are aging. Because during the liminal time in between visits, I can hold all the people I love even more dearly in my thoughts of them.