Well, I just got bugged for a concert review, and so I came to post it, but then I noticed that there was no concert review item, so I decided that I had to start one. So here it is.31 responses total.
On Saturday night, I trekked to the great town of Highland Park, IL, for a concert. Every summer they have the Ravinia Festival, which is 3 months of music in a beautiful outdoor venue. The pavilion is shaped like Pine Knob, but a little smaller, and looks a lot nicer. Also, no tv screens. The surrounding lawn area spreads out quite a bit, and while you cannot see the stage from the lawn, they have speakers set up everywhere so that you can easily hear the concert anywhere in the gardens. They also have a wide range of food available, plus encourage you to bring your own in. It's also in the part of town that is *EXTREMELY* weatlthy. The houses that we passed were just stunning. The first act was Michael McDermott, who I hadn't heard of, but I did recognize one song (Unemployed). He was depressing, the music was sleepy, and the only thing that he seemed to have in common with the other two acts was that he was of Irish descent. Despite the billing, he didn't play any Irish style music. Next up was Natalie MacMaster...and *WOW*. She looks like a 12 year old, or she should be wearing little irridescent wings. Her fiddling was just out of this world, and her stage patter a lot of fun, and very friendly. There was absolutely nothing snooty about her at all...it's hard to hate somebody when their first words are "Well, the first thing that we are going to do tonight is.....Perspire. You know, it's hard to look nice and keep your hair in order with all this humidity!". Natalie had quite a bit of evergy on stage, and she just got into the music so much....she was bouncing along to her fiddling, doing some stepdancing, and at one point put down her fiddle to do some serious dancing. Now I'm kicking myself for not seeing her when she's been coming to the Ark. Finally was Great Big Sea, who was a touch late, due to their flight coming in late from Boston. They took the stage in normal style, the music was wonderful, the crowd were a bunch of old fuddy duddies, the young'uns that wanted to dance and bounce and (heaven forbid) stand up, were at first shushed up, and then finally moved to the back corner of one aisle. The band seemed to be in a bit of a pissy mood. However, the music is always the important thing, and it lived up to standerds, although they played for only about 1 hour. Due to the fact that they were encourageing people to stand up and danec at the end, we think that they got booted from the stage by the festival people. But the music made it all worthwhile. okay, and so did seeing them in the hotel bar after the concert, and talking to one of the GBS guys. :)
In Aspen, Colorado at the annual Aspen Music Festival a couple of weeks ago, I witnessed an exquisite performance of an early Schoenberg piece, which I cannot identify at the moment because all my stuff including the program is in a storage locker. It was performed along with a companion piece written by Zemlinsky, who was Schoenberg's teacher. The performance was the US premier of the Zemlinsky piece. My friend Dan Avshalomov, one of the violists in the sextet which performed, recommended an out-of-print recording of the Schoenberg piece by the Hollywood Quartet. I shall have to seek this via the internet... Re: above. I've been hearing really wonderful things lately from various music industry professionals about Natalie MacMaster and her recent performances in this area.
It was *SO* wonderful....I'm now going to be picking up a bunch of her CD's, and am eagerly awaiting her next concert at the Ark. (Which isn't any time soon, unfortunately)
Natalie MacMaster started performing professionally when she was about 16, and I had the good fortune to pick up one of her early cassette releases based on a tip from The Washington Post music review pages. I think I've seen her once at the Philadelphia Folk Festival and at least twice at the Ark. She's certainly one of the most energetic performers I've ever seen; I wonder how long her knees can hold out.
I saw her a couple summers ago at the Smithsonian Folk Festival in Lansing, MI. She was wonderful!
It's Labor Day weekend, and that means it's Bumbershoot time here in Seattle. Bumbershoot is a giant music and arts festival held down at the Seattle Center (the area of the city where a lot of the performing arts and sports venues are located.) This year's line-up isn't as interesting as last year's was, but there's still lots going on -- dozens of bands playing over the four days of the festival. Today I watched sets by Damon & Naomi (decent but uninspiring mellow pop from ex-Galaxie 500 members), Jo Miller and the Burly Roughnecks (entertaining country swing), and the Red Elvises (energetic rockabilly) but I didn't get down to the festival in time to make it to an early show I wanted to see which featured Cat Power and Low, and after the Elvi were finished I didn't feel like staying around long enough to wait for Neko Case's evening set. Tomorrow's plan starts with Mary Black at noon and ends with Great Big Sea in the evening but I haven't figured out which acts I'll try and catch in between.
You'll enjoy the Great Big Sea....we were thining about wandering that way to catch them....:)
Actually, I didn't enjoy Great Big Sea's show at Bumbershoot as much as I enjoyed the show of theirs that I saw at the Ark a few years ago. Partly it was due to the crowd conditions , but I think mostly it was due to their choice of material. They performed a lot of new songs during this set and several of them suffered from what I think I've heard krj describe as "sappy Canadian ballad" disease. I like GBS's more traditional numbers and some of their more energetic originals but the slower originals are often sappy to the point of being embarrassing. Other performances from Sunday's visit to Bumbershoot didn't go well. I thought Mary Black had a decent voice but thought the songs she chose to sing were godawful new age crap. The act that preceded her was OK, though -- singer-songwriter Catie Curtis. My houseguest and I then spent most of the afternoon walking around downtown Seattle -- I took him for the inevitable visit to Pike Place Market and we walked around downtown and down by Pioneer Square, where we got trapped in the Elliot Bay Bookstore until we were able to reduce the thickness of our wallets enough to manage an escape. We grabbed dinner in a grubby little restaurant off Pioneer Square and then hoofed it back to the Seattle Center for a couple of the evening shows. The Red Elvises were on again before Great Big Sea but they performed virtually the same set, song-for-song, on both days so that wasn't much of a win. After Great Big Sea we wandered over to the Opera House to catch the latter hal of Rufus and Martha Wainwright's performance. They were OK, and I'd've probably enjoyed them under other circumstances, but by that point I was festivalled out. I should've saved my energy (and my second day-pass) for Monday, when I would've gone to see King Sunny Ade and Taj Mahal, among others, but instead we decided to spend Monday grocery shopping in the morning and hiking in the Cascades in the afternoon.
("Elvi"... heh... )
Saw David Lindley at the Ark tonight. Pretty small crowd, probably not even 25% capacity. But the people there made a lot of applause noises to make up for it. My guess is that it wasn't well publicized, not even on the Ark flyer or in the window. But the Observer had it somehow... Anyway, great show. Lindley played lots of slide guitar and a couple of interesting other guitarish instruments, and had a drummer/percussionist. Pretty cool slide playing; he did a couple of reggae tunes with the lowest string tuned way down to get the big bass sounds while playing regular guitar parts on the higher strings. And singing, of course.
Summers Delaney and Sharp were at the Crazy Wisdom Tea Room on Saturday night. I describe what they do as "channeling Django Reinhardt," the French gypsy jazz guitarist from the 1930s and 40s. Summers is the improvisational soloist; Delany plays rhythm guitar and Sharp is the acoustic bass player. This was the third time I've seen them and I think they are probably my favorite local performers. The trio plays at Borders every month or so. Recommended to carla and STeve, who are guitar fans, and to remmers, who likes old music styles.
Thanks for the tip. I'll watch for them.
I think I saw them once, and mostly agree with Ken's description, excepting that I found them pretty tame for my taste.
A couple of weeks ago I received a copy of Sally Timms' out-of-print "Cowboy Sally" EP from a friend who found one in a used record store while home over Christmas. I've been listening to it quite a bit and have grown to enjoy several of the songs. So when I noticed that the Handsome Family, a husband-and-wife act whose material Timms covered, (and about whom I'd also been curious because of other connections) were playing at a tavern in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood, I talked a friend into going to the show with me. We stood politely through two uninspiring opening acts' sets and were eventually rewarded with about an hour's worth of music from Brett and Rennie Sparks, the duo who make up the Handsome family. Although their songs are overwhelmingly slanted towards death and other depressing topics, their musicianship, stage presence, and engagement with the audience nevertheless lent their somewhat bleak songs a currency with the audience that the two preceding acts failed to achieve. By and large I enjoyed the show particularly their banter with each other and with the audience..
(Shamelessly ripped from my yesterday's finger.plan at work -- the concert was on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2002.) Last night we went to the Ark to see Gabriel Yacoub. Mmmmmmm. One of the founders of French "world music", known for his updated versions of traditional ballads from le Berry and Normandy, and also for his witty and intimate songwriting, Yacoub has a voice a lot like Dougie MacLean's, which automatically places him in my aural firmament of stars. Alas, including volunteers, there were thirty people in the place. It's too bad, because he gave a fantastic show, complete with self-deprecating jokes about his nervousness singing in English (which he did for two songs) and some marvellous explanations of the French songs. For just a guy and his guitar, it was a very full show. KRJ and Arabella also attended, among the grexians.
Hmmm... Actually, I'm sorry I missed that. I've liked the little Malicorne I've heard and would've enjoyed a chance to see Yacoub.
Ah, I've been delinquent in writing anything about the Gabriel Yacoub show, but then Twila probably covered it all better than I would have. Mike, I finally did manage to locate a list of Yacoub's American tour dates, and he didn't go anywhere near the west coast this trip. I felt a little bad about not trying to encourage Grexers to go before the show, but outside of Twila I couldn't think of anyone else who might have been willing to go listen to 90 minutes of songs in French, no matter how well performed. Yacoub has a new American release -- his first release to be distributed in America since his 1978 album TRAD ARR., which had a CD issue in the 1990s. The new one is on the 1-800-PRIME-CD label, and Yacoub said it's all new recordings, though some of the same songs have appeared on some of his French releases. Leslie is bugging me to excavate more of the old Malicorne discs, as I can only find three of them right now.
Not finding a concert preview item, I thought I'd jump the gun and mention that Gordon Lightfoot will be at the Michigan Theater on April 27, 2002.
Saw John McCutcheon at First Methodist in Royal Oak last night. This guy is a master of the hammer dulcimer, and played a solo concert including six- and twelve- string guitars, piano, banjo and some other thing I'm guessing is a non-hammer dulcimer. It was not trapezoidal, but it was geometrically shaped, strapped on like a guitar, and had about a dozen keys (on a dampening bridge across strings strung over a sounding board) which he played with one hand while strumming and picking with the other. He played "Christmas in the Trenches," his trademark rendition of "Joe Hill" complete with the story about the Aussie electrician who built the Sydney Opera House and the time Paul Robeson came to sing before the construction was complete, a handful of new stuff since 9-11, and some instrumental pieces including one fascinating one in which the sole instrumentation was a syncopated slapping of his legs and chest, with foot-stomping and clapping. All in all, a beautiful performance. One truly outstanding thing which I will probably remember far longer than the music (although one of the instrumental pieces he did on the hammer dulcimer pretty well blew away any other performance on that instrument I ever did, or am likely ever to hear) is what I am calling "The Book Thing." McCutcheon has a long and storied history of social activism, and he has become acquainted with several writes during his career. One of these is Paul Robeson, Jr., who has just come out with a new biography of his dad. JM said that of many bios of Robeson, Sr., this one is his favorite. (I've only read one myself.) So what he did was ask the audience to stand up and tell about volunteer activities in which they are involved which help improve their communities. At first there was a pause, then someone stood up and talked about her involvement in a non-profit called "Paint the Town" which is sort of like Habitat for Humanity but with a more narrowly tailored vision (my words). McCutcheon then held up the book and said that both he and the author had autographed it, and that he was giving it to this audience member with the following instructions (paraphrased): After you read this book, put the name and contact information for your organization inside the cover, and give this book to someone you know who is involved in another volunteer organization. Instruct them to do the same. This was about the most brilliantly simple way I've ever seen to turn the influence achieved with a measure of success and fame in the performance world into a force for real-world social change at the local level. Small, to be sure, but brilliant nonetheless.
The mystery instrument was probably an autoharp.
I was actually thinking that, but I cannot figure out why I would have been thinking that because I really have not the slightest idea.
Sounds like an autoharp to me too. Years ago, when I had some friends who were into John McCutcheon, I remember seeing him play a few things on the autoharp, so that would make sense.
Just got back from a performance at Seattle's Moore Theater by singer/songwriter Gillian Welch and her partner David Rawlings. It was a good show and the set list was heavy on material from "Time: the Revelator", last year's release and one which I thought was one of the best albums of 2001. I'm not sure how many other dates they're playing, or where, but if they perform in your neck of the woods and you enjoy Appalachian- tinged singer-songwriter stuff with very nice guitar picking and tight vocal harmonizing, I can definitely recommend them highly.
Saw a wonderful performance tonight by Irish fiddle player Martin Hayes and guitarist Dennis Cahill. Cahill mostly provided very understated rhythm and percussive embellishment to Hayes' extremely accomplished fiddle playing (according to his promotional materials, Hayes is a "six-time All-Ireland Fiddle Champion", though I'm not sure how that accolade is decided or whether it's as big a deal as it sounds. I do know that he put on an amazing show and his music was lovely which is more than enough for me..) Hayes apparently lives in Seattle these days, so for any of you other Northwest-based music-loving Grexers who have the opportunity to see him perform, I would highly recommend it.
Oh dear, this has died. I could start going on and on about the A2 Folk Fest, but I'll be good. :) But both nights were quite good....although I wasn't all that impressed witht he lineup. Wins some, loose some, eh?
The realities of geography mean I don't get to as many concerts as I would like (except for the regular local event, "The Monthly Grind", but it's not like hearing about those would mean much to the rest of you..)
Is the folk festival late this year? I seem to remember it being held in late January.
'Twas January 30-31 this year.
Ahh.. so not so much the folk festival that was delayed as it was Megan's review.. :-)
Exactly....not that it was all that much of a review anyway. And right now I'm not awake enough to post a real one.
Well, sketch out some notes and many of us would be happy to read about the folk festival, even now. After having tried out the refurbished Hill Auditorium, I could now see doing the Folk Festival maybe next year, while before the rebuild, the idea of a six-hour show at Hill just sent me fleeing.
You have several choices: