Review: I Won't Be The One (The Party) - Live by Andrew Phelan
By Saara Laidlaw
Photo by Nicole Robinson
Just stretch of a year ago Andrew Phelan released into the world a live EP titled “The Past Hunts In Paris” on September 26th 2016. The first of three songs the audience is presented with is the warmly crafted “I Won’t Be The One (The Party)”. . At first listen, I knew it was about to break my heart, from the simplicity of the lyrics to the soft guitar to the beautifully unsteady tone Phelans voice accompanied by back up singer, Stephanie Chatman, brought. A live performance at the Riviol in Toronto last week, I watched as Phelan unplugged his acoustic and moved away from the mic, you could hear one single pin drop … or at least one drunk girl. The atmosphere in the room flipped from local gig to sitting in a close friend’s backyard. The song portrays a bittersweet tone of two future lovers stumbling across each other at said “Party” , but the timing and circumstances keeping them apart. This is something I think a lot of us can relate to. Lyrics such as “ Times a wonderful mess / that hurts us none the less ” contribute to this continuous theme of time. With the song soon closing Phelan realizes that everything comes to an end, symbolizing that in the last verse , “every party must end / every joke can a offend / every faith has a lie / every rich man will die ” but leaving the listener with an optimistic note in the last 2 lines. He hopes he won’t have to say goodbye to this love nor will there have to be an ending .
Purchase and listen to I Won’t Be The One (The Party) here .