Monday 2/21
Faye Webster / Kate Bollinger at the Fine Line – TICKETS
Faye Webster loves the feeling of a first take: writing a song, then heading to the studio with her band to track it live the very next day. When you listen to the 23-year-old Atlanta songwriter’s poised and plainspoken albums, you can hear why: she channels emotions that are so aching, they seem to be coming into existence at that very moment. Webster captures the spark before it has a chance to fade; she inks lyrics before they have a chance to seem fleeting. Her signature sound pairs close, whisper-quiet, home-recorded vocals with the unmistakable sound of musicians together in a room.
I Know I’m Funny haha is Webster’s most realized manifestation yet of this emotional and musical alchemy. Continuing to bloom from her 2019 breakthrough and Secretly Canadian debut Atlanta Millionaires Club, Webster’s sound draws as much from the lap-steel singer-songwriter pop of the 1970s and teardrop country tunes as it does from the audacious personalities of her city’s rap and R&B community, where she first found a home on Awful Records.
Kate Bollinger’s songs tend to linger well beyond their run times, filling the negative space of ordinary days with charming melodies and smart phrasings. She writes them at home in Richmond, Virginia, letting her subconscious lead stretches on guitar, an open-ended process she likens to dreaming. From a chord progression appears a line, maybe a syllable will start to stick, enough to pursue, but she says sometimes the words don’t feel like her own, more like shapes that form in the mind’s sky. While many are personal and deal with the emotions that surface with finding her place in the world, she’d prefer they be whatever you’d like them to be, to connect with listeners in their own way. Bollinger’s musical universe is relaxed, tender, and unassuming; within lives a timeless sensibility, a songwriter’s knack for noticing the little things and their counterpoints. Darkness and light, pain and pleasure, reality and escape.
Thursday 2/24
Son Volt at the Fine Line – TICKETS
2020 was not quite what Jay Farrar was expecting for the 25th anniversary of Son Volt, the band he started in 1995 after leaving the seminal group Uncle Tupelo, whose No Depression album helped define the alt-country and Americana genre. The group had just finished an Outlaw Country Cruise when the pandemic hit and sent them into their homes on lockdown.
Instead of a triumphant tour marking the illustrious landmark, Farrar was forced indoors by the pandemic, and his “Reverie” during that time helped define Electro Melodier, Son Volt’s 10th studio album – and third for influential Nashville indie Thirty Tigers. The title, taken from the names of two vintage amplifiers from the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, also describes the disc’s unique blend of folk, country, blues, soul and rock – an electric troubadour with melodies that hit and stick. Social protest songs like “Living in the U.S.A.” and “The Globe,” the former about the promises of this nation gone wrong, the latter referencing the street protests accompanying the Black Lives Matter movement, exist side by side with odes to long-term relationships (specifically his 25-year marriage) in “Diamonds and Cigarettes” and “Lucky Ones.”
Friday 2/25
Drew & Ellie Holcomb at the Pantages – TICKETS
Drew and Ellie Holcomb are a husband and wife Americana duo from Nashville, Tenn. Shortly after their marriage in 2006, the couple began touring together with Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors. The band has supported many national touring acts including The Avett Brother, NEEDTOBREATHE, Don Henley and Willie Nelson.
Ellie is no longer a touring member of The Neighbors, and has found success in a solo career as a Christian singer/songwriter, winning two Dove Awards and topping the Billboard charts. Her most recent album “Canyon” was released in June 2021 to much fanfare.
Drew Holcomb still tours nationally with Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors and their most recent album “Dragons” is their most critically acclaimed release yet.
An Evening with Drew and Ellie Holcomb is a special engagement event, allowing the Holcombs to collaborate once again.
Saturday 2/26
Beach House at the Palace Theatre – TICKETS
BEACH HOUSE is VICTORIA LEGRAND, lead singer and multi-instrumentalist, and ALEX SCALLY, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. They write all of their songs together.
Their 8th studio album, ONCE TWICE MELODY, was Produced entirely by BEACH HOUSE, a first for the band. Like their previous record 7, the live drums are by JAMES BARONE. Live drums were recorded at PACHYDERM studio in Minnesota and UNITED Studio in LA. The Writing and Recording of ONCE TWICE MELODY began in 2018 and was completed in JULY 2021. Most of the songs were created during this time, though a few date back over the previous 10 years. Much of this recording was done at APPLE ORCHARD STUDIO in Baltimore.
Across the 18 Songs, many types of STYLE, SONG STRUCTURE, and SPIRIT can be heard; Songs WITHOUT drums, Songs centered around ACOUSTIC guitar, mostly ELECTRONIC Songs with no guitar, wandering melodies, repetitive melodies, Songs built around the STRING SECTIONS. While there are a lot of new sounds, many of the drum machines, organs, keyboards, and tones that listeners may associate with previous BEACH HOUSE records are still present throughout many of the compositions.
The Smithereens at the Medina Entertainment Center – TICKETS
Founded in New Jersey in 1980, The Smithereens have been creating electrifying, original rock’n’roll for 41 years. Jim Babjak (guitar) Dennis Diken (drums) and Mike Mesaros (bass) grew up together in Carteret and lead singer, the late Pat DiNizio, hailed from Scotch Plains. The band paid its dues in clubs all over the NYC tri-state area from Kenny’s Castaways in Greenwich Village to the Court Tavern and Stone Pony in NJ. As The Smithereens’ fame escalated, they were in heavy rotation on MTV and appeared on The Tonight Show, Conan O’Brien, and Saturday Night Live. They’ve since performed on stages coast to coast from the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles to the Meadowlands Arena in NJ to Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan, and internationally from Europe to Australia. Tour mates have included Tom Petty, Squeeze, The Pretenders, Lou Reed, and Ramones, among others.
