‘We don’t want to close our doors to anybody that might want to or need to hear our music,’ musician Ryan Keating said.
Photo by Aedra Joth.
The meating, a liminal jazz duo, put on their second free concert in the bottom level of the CARSA parkade (P-zero) on Sunday night, drawing a large crowd of all ages and backgrounds.
The first show the meating did in P-zero was on July 3, and drew in a crowd of over 150 people.
Marc Micu and Ryan Keating, the two musicians behind the meating, met over a year ago playing together in the folk-music band Thistle, and later played in the country-music Reuben Shepard Band.
Micu explained that it was their shared love for jazz music that brought them to start the meating together.
In March, the duo started busking together. Since then, they have put on numerous free shows, and have also recently played in the Nanaimo Jazz Fest. In an interview with the Martlet, Micu shared that they are hoping to play at the Victoria Jazz Fest next summer.
The idea to perform in the CARSA parkade initially came from his passion for experimenting with sound. “I remember trying out a bunch of parkades in Victoria, and then I eventually came across P-zero,” Micu said, “the sound in there is insane.”
“P-zero is a beautiful location,” he said.
In an interview with the Martlet, Keating described playing in P-zero as an “out-of-body experience” and said that the parkade itself “kind of acts like a third player.”
He added that P-zero is “just as much an art exhibit as it is a live performance of music.”
The meating’s music centers around themes of mental health, specifically men’s mental health, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and grief. “I feel incredibly lucky that people have understood [our music],” Keating said.
The duo also spoke about the importance of making music accessible.
Photo of Ryan Keating and Marc Micu by Aedra Joth.
“Given the whole premise of the meating and the messaging that we’re trying to get across, we don’t want to close our doors to anybody that might want to or need to hear our music,” Keating said.
Micu, who has a bachelor’s in music education, said that for him, the drive to make music accessible comes from his background in music education and advocacy.
Though the P-zero shows are free, the band does accept donations which, according to Micu, go straight into their band budget to be used for more events.
The meating’s first album, Volume One (live from P0), was recorded in P-zero, mostly during their July 3 show, and was completely improvised. According to Micu, about ninety per cent of the music they normally play is improvised.
“Ryan and I can never imitate what we did in that moment … so we’re always having to create new material every time we improvise.”
In Sunday’s show, the duo brought on a guest performer, Jayden Brown, who opened the show with a performance on a handpan and later joined in on the flute. Micu and Keating also played a large range of instruments during the show, including the trumpet, electric guitar, and flugelhorn.
Prior to Sunday’s performance, Micu shared that there would be many cameras present as a part of an unnamed project that he could not share more details about.
Signage was posted at the entrances to P-zero informing attendees that by entering they were consenting to being a part of the unnamed project, and numerous photographers and videographers were present at the event.
In the future, the duo hopes to go on a “parkade tour” around university campuses, and said that they have already been in contact with the University of British Columbia about it.
From the unique location to the band’s beautiful sound, they captivated the audience from start to finish, bringing the community together over a shared love of music.
