Apologies for the crummy picture but we were far away...
Both are Tiny Desk Darlings, especially Chris Thile who has performed with Yo Yo Ma, Nickel Creek, and the Pbros (as my friend Cate calls them) among others.
Seeing as I work at the home of the Tiny Desk it is sad that I've never been in the building when they've been there.
But I did get to see Haley live and in person, standing a desk's distance away from her during her Tiny Desk here). And was so excited to see her.
Haley is a singer songwriter, a beautiful voice coupled with her unique songwriting and poetry. A folk singer, a young old soul, and certainly worthy to hold an audience's attention with her performance. I always say when you go to a show, go and support the opener. And in this case - she was amazing and I hope she made some new fans.
During her set, Haley commented on how quiet and nice everyone was, compared to the night before in Richmond where people just talked the whole time and she didn't think anyone heard a word she sang. So she wondered what was wrong with us. "DC is so serious. I walked around today and everyone was on their phones having very important conversations. I guess that's kind of normal here?"
She has a song called "Oom Sha La La" (first song in the Tiny Desk link) where at one point she starts yelling "I need to start a garden! I need to start a garden!" so I told Sara if she sang this we had to scream back at her and Sara thought that was a plan. So she did, we laughed when she started singing it, and I apologized to the guy sitting in front of me for what I was about to do. We screamed right along with her. People in the audience caught on and a few joined in, but mostly people chuckled, the guy in front of me laughed, and so did she. She thanked the audience for being enthusiastic about gardening.
Describing the Punch Brothers, that isn't exactly easy. You can use terms like Bluegrass, newgrass, avant garde grass, chamber music, experimental, and at times just weird and wonderful. See their 2015 Tiny Desk here by the way.
Doug kind of "meh"ed at me when I asked him if he wanted to go with me, and I knew that would be his answer. Not sure if it was he didn't want to go to a show or if he doesn't care for the Punch Brothers. I know he doesn't really love Chris Thile's early stuff with Nickel Creek, so I think that "meh" follows through to him currently.
He doesn't know what he's missing. Especially based on the music he listens to every single day, these guys should really be the thing that rocks his socks off.
Five virtuoso musicians, top of their games. Stand up double bass, violin, mandolin, guitar, banjo. All string instruments and no percussion or piano. Percussion is handled by hitting the bodies of the violin, guitar, and mandolin.
I have grown to recognize Thile's playing so if I'm scanning on the dial of a radio and come across a song, I know it is him. Similar to when I hear David Grisman playing is "Dawg" music. Doug is a huge fan of Grisman/Garcia in all their different forms. I truly would have loved for him to go see this. So Mister Meh stayed home, and I took the aforementioned Sara with me.
We met in 2018 at a Guster show, and she lives about 4 miles away from us. She had a cursory knowledge of the band, and knew Chris from his APM stint with "Live From Here," the Prairie Home Companion replacement. To get acquainted, she dove on a list of videos and songs I recommended, and then she dove in deeper! She knew more songs than I knew, and sang along with just about every one. She even knew when to yell stuff back at the band when they performed.
With a mix of songs with Chris singing, three and four part harmonies, and a lot of instrumental magic, they're a performance to behold. They did an amazing cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." An audience that politely sat in the seats the whole time when there should have been hooting, hollering, and flailing was a little frustrating. At one point Chris was playing so stinking hot and a guy yelled out "GET IT! GET AT IT!" and everyone laughed and cheered. Politely. It was like we were hypnotized at times - just watching this artistry, this sorcery. Chris playing, bouncing and trading back and forth with Noam on his banjo. Breakdowns and slowdowns, slaps into wild revery and drops into soft harmonies and storytelling.
The show tonight wasn't sold out and part of me was so tempted to just go back for more, and get there super early and sit right up front. Hopefully the folks there tonight are a little more hype.
Punch Brothers' setlist (not filled in as of this writing)
Here's Sara and me, we wanted a picture of the evidence that we left the house, and not only left the house but had a really great time. I asked a rando stranger to take the picture for us and to please make sure to get Abe in the back. He could have done a better job of asking us to pose differently for more big giant Abe head. But it is good enough.
The title of this post comes from one of the Punch Brothers songs, and I highly recommend it. Here's a version live from 2018. Do watch and enjoy. Heaven is a Julep on the porch...
No comments:
Post a Comment