Tag: Live Review

A Summer Evening With Natalie Merchant (Concert Review)

Natalie Merchant recently completed a short A Summer Evening With Natalie Merchant tour. During it, she visited several Northeast states, including Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. I was lucky to catch her at Hudson Hall in Hudson, New York for the final performance of the tour on August 9, 2019. On a simple blue-lit stage accompanied only by one musician, she gave an intimate career-spanning show.

Merchant appeared on the stage before maybe a few hundred people, alone except for a piano behind her and her guitarist Erik Della Penna at her side. Throughout most of the show, Penna provided the only accompaniment. But Merchant did not hesitate to stand up and move with the music. She often spoke to the audience, telling stories.

Penna’s guitar work beautifully accompanied the songs, perfectly balancing and never intruding, allowing Merchant’s voice to shine. And it was her amazing voice that mesmerized the listeners. Her distinctive voice sounded much like it did while Merchant was still in her twenties.

The Summer Evening Tour helped promote a recent 10-CD box set that Merchant released covering her solo career since she left 10,000 Maniacs. The Natalie Merchant Collection begins with Merchant’s successful Tigerlily album and includes a new album, Butterfly, as well as a CD of rarities.

Merchant’s career is ripe for the retrospective. If you have not followed her career in recent years, you have missed out on a career that has continued to create quality interesting music. Delving into folk music interpretations, different arrangements like using a string quartet, Merchant maintains her signature sound while also being adventurous.

The Summer Evening Tour did an outstanding job of highlighting the roads of Merchant’s career. She closed with the Maniacs classic “These Are Days.” She had played the song on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show the night before. She played it, she joked, “Because whatever Jimmy wants, he gets.” (Update: Unfortunately, the video of her Tonight Show performance is no longer available on YouTube.)

And of course, there was “Wonder” from Tigerlily. But songs from her other albums stood up with her most well-known songs. Among other songs she played were: “Motherland,” “Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience,” “Owensboro,” “Cowboy Romance,” “Break Your Heart,” a cover of Henry Mancini’s “Moon River” (for her guitarists parents’ anniversary), and “Don’t Talk.”

For the encore she came back onstage, starting with just herself at the piano before being joined again by her guitarist. Other songs included: “Life is Sweet, the folk song “Matty Groves,” “Saint Judas,” “If Noone Ever Marries Me,” “Wonder,” and “Kind and Generous.”

During the long folk song “Matty Groves,” Merchant forgot the lyrics at a few points. As she sought help from her guitarist, she did it all in a funny way that made the audience enjoy it even more.

Because of Merchant’s advocacy for social justice issues in her life and music, it was not surprising that her banter went to such issues a few times. She talked a little about President Trump and his immigration policies when she introduced “Saint Judas.” And earlier she told a story about the city of Hudson’s history in fighting against a large polluting concrete company that wanted to destroy the area before people fought back. Such talk was limited and done in an entertaining way that brought the audience together.

Although Merchant appears to be taking a break from performing and recording, during the show she announced she will be getting the John Lennon Real Love Award in December. The award will be presented by Yoko Ono for Merchant’s activism and music. As part of receiving the award, Merchant will perform with other artists in tribute to Lennon and the Beatles.

Although Merchant may not attract the large crowds she did in her heyday, she still sells out small venues. And the intimate settings highlight her music, her charisma, and her voice. If you get the chance to see her, do. In the meantime, if you have lost track of her recent work, check out the career-spanning box set.

Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    James Taylor Live in Greensboro (Live Review)

    The following is a Guest Post by Brad Risinger, reporting on the James Taylor concert in Greensboro, North Carolina on May 18, 2018.

    James Taylor has told interviewers that he was “clinically nervous” in 1968 when he played an audition for Paul McCartney and George Harrison for The Beatles’ new record label, Apple. Returning to his North Carolina roots for a May 18 show at the Greensboro Coliseum in North Carolina, he just chuckled introducing the song he played for Sir Paul: “Something in the Way She Moves.” “I wish I could remember it,” he said of the Apple session, “but I’m told I had a good time.”

    Taylor Greesboro

    Playing a show so close to his beginnings in Chapel Hill – where a bridge south of town bears his name – any gaps in his memory are readily forgiven by an aging, but adoring, crowd. At 70, Taylor’s voice remains as soothing as a soft blanket on a cool morning. His longtime backing vocalists – centered around the charismatic Arnold McCuller – may cover small corners of his range that now elude him.  But their interlaced voices are so familiar and compatible that it is hard to think about them without each other.

    This tour is unabashedly fueled by memory as much as it is music. It was intended as a summer barnstormer with his old pal, Bonnie Raitt.  But illness forced her to back out of at least its early dates.

    The homey digital graphics package that accompanied most songs featured photos scattered across his more than 50-year career, both phases of his family life and his many band mates. He signed autographs for most of the intermission at the corner of the stage.  And he was tugged back for the second set seeming to enjoy the interaction almost as much as his fans.

    Stars, of course, play their catalogues.  And two robust sets got to most of Taylor’s critical and fan high-water marks. The applause for “Fire and Rain” in the middle of the second set was so sustained my daughter asked if the show was ending. But in a knowing nod to a loyal fan base, the tour of his discography is reminiscent but not reverent.

    James Taylor is comfortable with the chronology of a decades-long career, but won’t be the pop star who plays the same show he offered 30 years ago. He will give you what he has, from where he is, understanding where he and his fans have been together.

    He confides that “the old jokes are best, told over and over again.” He never fails to tell the story of his nephew James, and the “cowboy lullaby” he wrote for him driving south to see him for the first time (“Sweet Baby James”). But he’ll also offer differing arrangements that feature many of his stalwarts who share the stage, and truncated versions of classics like “Steamroller” that would seem out of place in their old, extended forms. Even a shortish “Steamroller” in Greensboro caused a slightly winded Taylor to offer “that got a little out of hand.”

    At a time when the country is foundering to find its way, Taylor has never been shy about his belief that music, and love, work hand in hand to show a path forward. Back in politically purple North Carolina, he uttered not a word of the socially conscious politics that have defined much of his public life. Instead, he offered what he always has in his lyrics: something to hang onto, for each listener in her own way.

    He introduced “Jump Up Behind Me” as a song about getting out of New York in the 1960s when his early band, “The Flying Machine,” had flown apart. He called his father, who sensed the moment, and told him not to move and drove to get him in 12 hours. “I was in trouble,” Taylor recalled.

    Taylor’s mellow, reflective folk rock has been so enduring in part for this ability to help listeners cope with what cards life deals you along the way. The Carole King mainstays in the show – “You’ve Got a Friend” and “Up on the Roof” – are hopeful and understanding. One of his best ‘80s songs, “Never Die Young,” is written from a bleaker viewpoint.  The song counsels that sometimes we are only managing setbacks to get to a better place, as we “cut up our losses into doable doses, ration our tears and sighs.”

    But 10,000 people singing “Shower the People” is at the core of the James Taylor experience. A background video board showed 100 or so video clips of Taylor’s friends and random fans singing along in little boxes that resembled the closing scene of the movie “Love Actually.” There are likely few large-scale tours left for Taylor. But it seems that Taylor, and his fans, are just fine with the legacy message of showing kindness to those around you. “Things are gonna be much better if you only will.”

    Photo courtesy of Brad Risinger. Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    John Prine Takes the Stage With New Music at Radio City Music Hall

    Prine Radio City On a Friday the 13th, one of the greatest songwriters of all time, John Prine, took the stage at Radio City Music Hall to launch his first album of new material in thirteen years.  With some help of a great band, opener Sturgill Simpson, and special guest Brandi Carlile, the 71-year-old showed that he remains a great entertainer too.

    The April 13, 2018 show began with Sturgill Simpson opening for Prine, taking the stage alone with a guitar for about an hour.  Few performers can command such a large audience alone, but Simpson is one of them, even as he admitted being nervous before coming out.

    Simpson’s set included many of his best songs, with a highlight being his performance of “Turtles All the Way Down” back-to-back with “Just Let Go.”  Both of those songs appeared on Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (2014).  Other songs included a moving rendition of “Oh Sara.”  And he played the opening song from A Sailor’s Guide to Earth (2016), “Welcome to Earth (Pollywog).”

    Simpson also played some traditional songs and covers, including When in Rome’s “The Promise,” which he had included in Metamodern Sounds, and the Bee Gees’ “Come on Over.”  And he began “Long White Line” with a riff that took a detour into Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire.”

    One has to admire Simpson, who could fill the seats just on his own, having the respect for Prine to be his opener. Simpson is one of the best music artists today, in or outside the country genre, so it was great to see him in this context.

    Simpson also announced that while he will be playing a number of festivals until September, after those shows he plans to take a year off from touring.  His wife is having another son and he wishes to spend time watching his children grow.

    John Prine Takes the Stage

    John Prine took the Radio City Music Hall stage for the first time in his career with a sharp band, including new members Ken Blevins on drums and and Fats Kaplan playing fiddle, mandolin, and lap steel guitar. At one point Prine explained how much it meant to be on this stage when he recounted seeing Bette Midler at the venue performing his song “Hello in There.”  At the time, he dreamed of one day playing here.

    Because the show was the album-release show for The Tree of Forgiveness (2018), many of those new songs made it into the set.  But there was plenty of room for old gems.

    Prine Radio City

    Early on, Prine played a wonderful rendition of his classic “Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow).”  And there was a fun performance of “Grandpa Was a Carpenter.” But the audience was just as welcoming of the new songs from The Tree of Forgiveness, sometimes helped by a humorous introduction, as in the case of “Egg & Daughter Nite, Lincoln Nebraska, 1967 (Crazy Bone).”  Everyone in the audience will be receiving the new CD in the mail after buying a ticket for this show, but they had not received the album yet.

    While there was not much politics in the show, there was a nod to the political climate with “Caravan of Fools.”  And Prine introduced his old gem “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore” by saying that he normally dusts off the song only for election years.  But he said that after the last election, he is keeping it in his set.

    While some may have wondered how Prine’s voice would hold up at his age and after two bouts of cancer, he eliminated any doubts by generally being in great shape.  His voice got a little hoarser as the show went on and he missed a few of the high notes on “Hello in There.”  Yet, any voice cracks gave more emotion to the song, and guest and backup singers helped out in the last part of the show.  And with all that, Prine was still going strong at the end.

    In the middle of Prine’s show, all of the band members left to take a break.  And the 71-year-old entertained us with just his voice and guitar for several songs, including the best version of “Sam Stone” I have ever heard.

    Special guest Brandi Carlile helped out with Prine’s new song “Summer’s End,” which she also sings with him on the new album.  She also did a great job trading verses with Prine on what may be his most recognized song, “Angel From Montgomery.”

    And one of the highlights of the entire show was when Prine and Carlile came to the front of the stage for “In Spite of Ourselves,” a song from Prine’s  1999 duets album of the same name that had featured Iris Dement on the tune.  Prine introduced the song by saying that his wife said he could do another song with Carlile if he did not talk too much during the show.

    Sturgill Simpson returned to join Prine too.  The two men sang “Please Don’t Bury Me” and a touching “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness.”  With the band, the whole group gave a rousing performance of “Pretty Good.”

    The latter song transcends well in a live setting with multiple electric guitars and the power of Simpson’s voice, while “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness” was a quieter moment befitting the lyrics.

    Finally, it was time to say goodbye.  Prine closed with with his wonderful epic “Lake Marie,” backed up by the band along with a few guests that included Carlile, Prine’s son, and Prine’s wife Fiona.  Then, they finished with another song of spoken words and choruses with “When I Get to Heaven” from Tree of Forgiveness.  The final song, referencing lost loved ones and looking with joy toward death, was a touching and humorous finale.

    It was my first time seeing Prine perform live, and as in the case anytime I have seen a long-term favorite artist perform, I could count a number of songs I wish he would have played.  But with such an amazing catalog, there is no way he can play even a significant portion of his great songs.  Yet, during the show, I never spent any time wishing for anything else besides what was going on at the stage. It was a fantastic celebration by one of America’s gems.

    Photos by Chimesfreedom. Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Marty Brown Rocks a Packed House (October 4, 2014 Live Review)

    Marty Brown October 2014

    On Saturday, October 4, 2014, country singer Marty Brown returned to Middletown, New York to play before a packed house at Brian’s Backyard BBQ and Blues. This time, Brown brought together an excellent backing band, mixing covers and a number of his great original songs, including songs from his latest CD like “Whatever Makes You Smile.”

    Marty Brown NY Brown, in the midst of a career renaissance after his appearance on America’s Got Talent, performs like a man who knows how fortunate he is to have a second chance at his career. His playing and singing reflect a rare joy that is catching. He happily engages with his audience and tells stories to introduce some of his songs. Several times he asked the audience for input on what they wanted to hear. His genuine appreciation for his fans is not limited to the stage. When he is not on stage, he hangs out with the audience members, moving around and talking to folks, taking pictures, and signing autographs.

    I especially enjoyed when Brown dug into his back catalog, as when he played “High and Dry,” the first track on his debut album form 1991 of the same name. Although his voice has grown deeper in the ensuing decades sine he released the song as a young man, Saturday’s performance infected the song with the hard-won blues of an older man who has seen more of life. I liked the new version just as much as when I first heard the song back in the 1990s.

    At the Brian’s Backyard BBQ performance, the members of Brown’s outstanding backing band included drummer Vito Luizzi (a member of the late Johnny Winter’s band), guitar player Rob Daniels (who also performs on his own as a singer-songwriter), and professional bassist Chuck Torres. The band sounded great on both the cover songs and on Brown’s originals.

    Brian’s Backyard BBQ and Blues is a fun venue with excellent food, great service, comfortable atmosphere, and surprisingly exceptional acoustics. Opening performers during the “Country Fest” evening included Shannon Scott, Alyssa Startup, Matt Johnson, and Rob Daniels, all who did a great job entertaining the crowd. Another opening act was the Jason Casterlin Band, which got the audience going with a fun set of country songs. The Hudson Valley group played a combination of originals and covers like “Wagon Wheel.” Casterlin has an excellent voice, so country music fans should check him out if he plays in your area.

    For more on upcoming Marty Brown shows, check out his website or his Facebook page.

    Leave your two cents in the comments.

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