Live Music Log, July 2019

Hi.  I'm a guy who goes to shows in West Michigan and then writes down what I remember about them. These are their stories.

7 4 19 Olivia & The Aquatic Troupe #28/VALERIE THE VULTURE Founders, Grand Rapids  The bogus holiday was celebrated with the Mainville/Schreibers in the increasingly problematic confines of the Founders Taproom.  Opening act Valerie the Vulture, like Alice Cooper both a band and a person, lit a firecracker under our asses with big fat garage rock chords from a trio of women who were not here to play nice.  Valerie, aka Willa Rae Adamo, previously led a Halloween themed band, so they were a more natural fit with Liv and Brandon than outwardly apparent.  Back then they had nothing out, now there are two singles to hear and a lot more to come.  The Troupe were nearly blown off their own stage, but the femme-Django strains soothed the savage beasts just fine.  The band taunts us by playing so many songs from the album that will never ever be released it seems:  languid talky anthems with Olivia's precision guitar stings, Adam's controlled chaos on drums, and Brandon's steady bass, so different from his own excitingly erratic guitar with Jack and the Bear.  I think Bleu was there.  This was a long time ago. To prevent this crap from happening, I am gonna start writing about shows immediately, and save the drafts.  This blog is supposed to be a memory aid, not a test.

7 6 19 Carrie McFerrin #28/COLE HANSEN Beaver Lodge, Comstock Park  This was a model of how a house show should be run, a model I intend to attempt copying at my house next year.  Stacy Noonan and Jonathan Beaver, who play music together under the name Beaver Xing, put on a few shows each summer at their house right alongside York Creek, with a big backyard on a beautiful piece of wooded land sandwiched between the behemoth York Creek Apartments and six lanes of Alpine Avenue.  I could bring Sheila!  Two canopies were pitched:  one for the performers, and one for the crowd in case of rain. A spread of snacks and beverages were available.  Cole Hansen played first;  late of the band Bello Spark, she's been stepping out on her own with her amiable, intelligent folk-pop.  Favorite lyrical image:  uncracked garage sale books.  I know that feeling and smell so well...  Undisputed highlight:  the utterly charming Tightrope Walker, extolling the virtues of doing whatever the hell you want to with your life. Carrie, resplendent in handkerchief-dress-thing, brought Mikey Powell up to GR with her for support and harmony, and she sounded super spiffy in the warm night air.  But then it started to sprinkle.  And then it started to pour.  And because the Beavers came prepared, the show moved under the big tent to continue unplugged.  Sheila, already not a fan of amplified music, retreated to an old couch inside the barn, and since she seemed disinclined to budge, I joined the writhing crowd under the tent, glasses steaming up, hollering and dancing as the show devolved into drunken singalongs.  This was the definition of how to spend a kickass summer evening.  The next weekend, I had to move all my belongings to my new Miracle Ghetto House, so I was glad of the respite.

7 23 19 ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA/DHANI HARRISON Van Andel Arena, Grand Rapids  Since my immersion in the local scene, I don't carve out a lot of time for national acts.  For Jeff Lynne's first US tour in 35 years, I made an exception.  This was my first time inside Van Andel in ten years, since seeing Foo Fighters with my ex wife. I had bought the tickets eight months earlier in hopes of bringing my mother, but she had oral surgery close to the date and begged off. I invited an acquaintance from Kzoo to come with, as a kind of test date, but no sparks seemed to fly in either direction.  (If she reads this: surprriiiiise)  Dhani looks and sounds so much like his dad it's spooky, but he's carving out his own path:  even in his thirties, he looked like a kid sneaking onto the stage with his scruffy mates amid the gargantuan ELO sets.  His band thenewno2 seems to be no more, these were more straightforward rock tunes, but I couldn't make out the lyrics at all:  the sound crew gave the opener short shrift compared to the booming fidelity of Jeff's set. The huge crowd roared when Jeff broke into "Standin' In The Rain" (odd opener) and barely let up for the next 100 minutes as the jukebox kept a crankin.  No other original members are left, but some of the randos on stage got a spotlight at times as Jeff rested his voice or his guitar hands. Do Ya was the only Move tune of course, and the hardest rocker of the evening;  Can't Get It Out Of My Head was impossibly lovely; the only surprising tune, 10538 Overture, was majestic as fuck; Shine A Little Love still sucks; and the Roll Over Beethoven encore connected it all back to Mom's old ELO II 8 track:  some nights, nostalgia rules.  Undisputed highlight was when Dhani came back out to join in on Handle With Care, to eulogize departed Wilburys. Would I have liked more deep cuts?  Absolutely.  But this massive production was about delivering Mr. Blue Sky to the masses, and that's ok.

7 27 19 The Crane Wives #71 The Robin Theatre, Lansing  I got to attend a Wives show with Dan in his own town for the first time.  (He was also at the Loft show, but I was with Renae and Julie at that one.) Five months out, the details are gone, but I guarantee I enjoyed myself in the intimate setting with an attentive audience.  Kate once asked me:  aren't you bored to death with these songs yet?  This is show 71!  Answer:  nope.  There is always new nuance, slight change in setlist, welcome spins around the block with old friends (both the songs and the band). This is loyalty, but not JUST loyalty:  these tunes are the soundtrack I choose, the way I want the flow of my emotional life to be directed.  From the depths of despair found in Nothing at All to the hesitant dawn of new hope in Daydreamer, these are the grooves my heart bumps along in.  Always looking for new converts to my cockeyed religion.