Martin Harley brings his intoxicating slide-guitar sound to CapU on May 10
The Welsh singer-songwriter and Weissenborn master has a long history of playing unusual—and sometimes record-setting—gigs
Martin Harley. Photo by Rob Blackham
Martin Harley plays the BlueShore at CapU on May 10 at 7:30 pm
IT’S QUITE POSSIBLE that there’s no gig so “out there” that Martin Harley will turn it down. The Welsh singer-songwriter and slide guitarist once played at an elevation of 21,000 feet on Kala Patthar in the Himalayas. That 2005 performance, for which Harley accompanied British musician Oz Bayldon, was recognized by the folks at Guinness World Records as the highest-altitude concert in history, although it has since been surpassed.
In 2010, Harley spent a month touring the UK, playing 27 shows along the way. That doesn’t sounds like such a big deal until you learn that he traversed the entire 1,900 kilometres by bicycle. It’s a good thing Harley’s chosen instrument is the relatively compact Weissenborn lap slide guitar and not, say, a Steinway & Sons Model D-274 concert grand piano.
The BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts at Capilano University isn’t quite as high up as Kala Patthar, although it is nestled in the foothills of the North Shore Mountains, so while it’s conceivable that Harley could get there by bicycle, don’t count on it. (Don’t let that stop you from doing so, though.)
What you can count on is that Harley will deliver both heartfelt songs and instrumental fire, wielding his Weissenborn to create what SLAP magazine called “a glorious and intoxicating sound”.
And if we’re really lucky, he might even bless us with his absolutely killer cover of Richard Thompson’s “1952 Vincent Black Lightning”. 
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