Drumming Evolves During Squid Show

February 16th, 2006

By Dean Lisk
Arts Reporter
The Daily News

REVIEW - Anyone who thinks listening to two hours of nearly non-stop drumming is asking for a migraine hasn't met the likes of Squid.

The five-guy precision drumming and piping group played its first of four performances at the Alderney Landing Theatre last night.

Called Squid: The Evolution, the show - the band's first theatre production - took its audience of 200 on a trip from traditional military drumming to a modern fusion of world beats.

The four drummers' Dartmouth Pipe Band training was obvious during the first - and most traditional - part of the show.

Standing rigid, with their backs straight and chests puffed out, drummers Matthew Guest, Mark Jamieson, Ian MacMillan and Daniel St. Pierre performed with military accuracy. Their only movements came from their drumstick-wielding hands, fluttering with the speed of hummingbird wings.

As the show progressed, they played up the military strictness by acting like toy soldiers before finally exploding in a flurry of stick-tossing movements.

Ryan Fraser, Squid's fifth member, took bagpiping from cruel to refreshing. During one jazzy jam session, he played his pipes more like a saxophone than Highland instrument.

It's no wonder the band - whose average age is 22 - received the Aliant People's Choice Award at the 2004 Halifax Buskers Festival. These guys are performers.

At one point, local beatboxer Jay Andrews led Squid in a hip-hop set by using vocal sound effects to mimic the beats and rhythms of drums and symbols.

Thrown into the mix was a little physicality, in the same vein as the PVC-playing Blue Man Group and foot-pounding Stomp. Between their drum beats, the guys threw their sticks, played with water bottles and tossed around stools, causing the audience to clap and gasp.

Squid not only crosses the musical spectrum, the group reinterprets familiar sounds and rhythms, making them exciting and new.