I am so proud to live in Nashville. The move I made here, from Indiana, is proving to be the best move I ever made in my life. I came here to be with the woman I love, and married, but I had no idea what was in store for me when I would later become a reviewer for the local music scene.
The show last night was so good, that this review may seem less like a review, and more like a philosophical analysis of life in Nashville, but I just don't know any other way to describe what was the best show I have personally ever attended...
As it turns out, this city has crushed my belief that good music is rare. Before coming here, I felt lucky if I ever saw a good show. In Nashville, musical excellence is par for the course. Each band I discover, through the aid of 91.1 WRVU, and footwork, going to shows, impresses upon me a childlike wonder at just how such beautiful music can still be created, when so much has gone before, that I thought it had all been done.
Last night, I died, went to heaven, and was born again. I emerged from The Basement with a new, refined taste for music, thanks to the incredible bands I beheld.
Caitlin Rose
An Angel by the name of Caitlin Rose opened the bill with a song I requested. "Gorilla Man", her endearing tale of gorilla love, swinging through the trees, and a poor gorilla girl's broken heart, draws a parallel between us and our ape-ish ancestors, and becomes instant reality, when heard.
That's how Caitlin writes. Her words, as soon as they leave her lips, become truth, and nothing will impede her progress into the hearts of all who hear them. She might be offended when I tell her I enjoy her 10X's more than her heroine, Linda Ronstadt, but it's true. She has a voice that pours like rain on a parched desert, and a wit that seems made of pure, joyous curiosity.
Her musical style hearkens back to the days when music was all we had. When mother played guitar, and sang her babies to sleep because daddy was gone; away working, at war, or beyond the threshold of life, into the sky. Caitlin sings songs by the bedside, as an oil-lamp flickers, casting shadows that flit and flitter on the walls, while outside, the rain drums down upon the awning, and baby, full and contented, dozes, dreaming of daddy, and mommy's warm embrace.
I spoke with Caitlin, at length, before the show, and throughout the evening, even before I knew who she was, and I can say that she is as charming as her music. I am honored to know her. She is a small legend, but she is drinking milk, and eating her vegetables. In her we have a source we can trust for authentic, soulful bluegrass/country/folk from the heart, and from the hip. To know Caitlin is to love her. To hear her sing is to love being alive.
Her Teradyme page is forthcoming, with info and images of the show last night.
The Saps
It is apparent that these guys use term "Saps" as a verb, to describe what happens to all the energy during their shows, because they explode like a well-coordinated atomic symphony onstage. Sitting still is not an easy task when this band plays, and the fury they unleash is like nothing I have ever encountered before.
I didn't really want to check them out (bad aren't i?) because I was waiting anxiously for Heypenny, but after they started, it became clear that they were no joke, and that we were all in for quite a white knuckle ride. I enjoyed their show tremendously, and recommend them to anyone who loves all-out hard-hitting balls-to-the-wall rock music of a progressive bent.
I'll be seeing this band again the next chance I get, as I need to watch and listen to them more closely and speak a little more with them to get a better feel for what they're about. My apologies for falling short on covering this band. They deserved much better.
To the Saps:Until next time guys, keep doing what you're doing. You rocked my socks off.
Heypenny(!!!)
I won't bother getting into their set list, as it's irrelevant. If you didn't see the show, you missed a page of history that will shine forever in the memories of all who were in attendance. My condolences to everyone who missed this show. I think they played 9 or 10 songs, including a unique cover of the hip-hop song by Beyonce called, I think 'Single Ladies', and actually made it sound good!
As Heypenny's show progressed, it dawned on me that I was seeing real magic happen onstage, the kind that legends are made of. I did my best to record as much as I could of it, though it is unfortunate that I don't understand my digi-cam well enough to have done this immaculate show justice.
(As a reviewer, journalist, blogger, whatever you want to call me, I need to make it clear to my readers that I do none of this for any reason other than absolute truth of representation, and to express that I am humbled by the greatness I encounter, and want to share it with you.)
The point, simply, is that you and I need to attend every Heypenny show we're able to, and buy every record they release, because this is a band who has some strange kind of music within them that cures what ails the spirit. It seems to me that, by the laws of logic and natural order, that Heypenny will be as big, and beloved, as the Beatles.
More specific details about their music, and media I have collected will be in their Teradyme page, coming soon.
