Here's the easy part, the setlist:
Soundcheck included "A whistling samba tune", STTN, Ruins (also played samba-style), and Happiness is a Warm Gun.
First Set: Money, Money, Money Tin Can Coffee Cup Snowed In > Poor Boy (Nathan exits) Predicting The Rain Instrumental jazz number (Nathan Returns) Mardi Gras Song Summer of My Fall 19th Nervous BreakdownSecond Set: May I Stay "Little Piece of String" Eulogy I'm In No Hurry To Get To Heaven Chopin Prelude (in Fm?) > Back In 15 Minutes (Nathan Leaves) Sometimes True To Nothing (Nathan returns) Never A Boy Again (working title) Holly Would Big Light Movin By Lovin Before You Were Born Nowhere From Here To GoEncore: It's Good To Be Back Home Ambrosia Drunk Hunny You Don't Have To Say You're Sorry 'Til You Go
Now the not-so-easy part: Describing what actually happened. How do you describe a peak experience in words? I don't even know where to begin.
Well, I guess I'll start at the beginning.
Savannah's is a tiny venue, long and thin, with a small area in front of the stage from which the tables were cleared. This area takes up about 1/5 of the venue's total space. The rest is a long bar. I'm not exaggerating much when I say that the stage and the area in front of it is not much bigger than living/dining room area of my house. If this gig had been on a weekend when more people could travel, Savannah's would have been overwhelmed. As it was, the place was pretty packed.
Anyway, on to the music:
I was able to arrive early enough for soundcheck (the beauty of the hometown gig.)
The whistling samba tune was very cool, with Brad whistling the melody throughout (not at all easy) and Marc playing leads on his new Danelectro 6-string bass. Next time you see him playing it, watch for him to capo it at the 12th fret and play it like a guitar. Coupled with his new bass pedals, he can now play bass and guitar at the same time. (As if he isn't amazing enough!!)
Ruins (with Nathan) was played in a very different style than I had seen previously. Gone was the Leonard Cohen/Tom Waits theatrical storytelling style. Instead, this version owed a lot to the samba they had just played.
After a bit of hanging out, talking, and waiting, it was showtime.
Unfortunately, Leslie's voice had gone from bad to worse and she was unable to perform. In her place were 2 of her childhood friends who, according to Andrew, had taught her to play guitar. I didn't get their names, but they played a short set of country/blues on Nathan's guitar and a bunch of borrowed harmonicas (think about that for a second.) Despite not knowing they were performing until minutes before they found themselves on stage and using borrowed instruments, they turned in a decent, if somewhat unorganized set.
Finally, sometime after 10 pm, Mr. Davis took the stage (really, just a small platform about 8 inches higher than the floor.) As is my habit, I planted myself squarely in the center at the edge of the stage, placing me about 24 inches from the band. From here I could fully take in every nuance of their musical interaction. You can learn more from one night of watching these guys than from hours of instructional videos.
I won't be able to describe every highlight and all the amazing things we experienced. This review would go on for pages and pages. So, I'll try to get down the highest of the highs.
Snowed In featured some great 3-way wordless vocal interplay from Andrew, Brad, and Nathan. Then Nathan stepped back and let the brothers interweave their voices. Seems to me that Andrew and Brad have been experimenting more with this lately and I'm loving it.
Poor Boy was your typical stomp-fest until Andrew changed up the rhythm for the ending. Of course, everyone on stage stayed right with him and there were big smiles all around.
Predicting The Rain featured Andrew playing beautiful, delicate lines on a tongue drum. Just lovely.
Next came a jazz instrumental I couldn't place and I forgot to ask Brad about it later. But this was a classic example of brilliant BAM telepathy. It seemed as if there was one mind driving all three musicians. Simply brilliant. The person next to me caught some Monk quotes at the end, but I missed them.
Brad started the Mardi Gras song while Nathan was still off in the crowd somewhere and he made his way through the crowd and back to the stage adding ecstatic howls (in tune, mind you) to the intro. Once on stage, he added melodica to the mix.
The title of the set closer is somewhat deceptive. They didn't just play 19th Nervous Breakdown. They played 19th, 20th, and 21st Nervous Breakdowns. This was an absolute riot, figuratively and almost literally. If they had played this any longer, the room might have exploded.
The intermission gave everyone a much-needed chance to cool off and catch their breath.
The second set opened with Brad on the electric blue cardboard dulcimer, taking us on a tour of a misty backwoods swamp which accelerated into another incendiary May I Stay. If you read my Iron Horse review, you may remember my comment that Brad almost caused the dulcimer to combust at that gig. Well, this night continued to push the instrument's envelope, with Brad breaking a string early in the tune, calling out "It's alright!" and plowing on further into the groove.
After the tune, Andrew asked for our attention and explained the significance of what had just happened. Turns out Andrew had built that dulcimer when he was nine years old (that explains the "non-traditional" finish) and that the original strings had stayed on it since then. And now, one of those strings had broken, separating from its instrument for the first time. And so we were all asked to raise our glasses and give praise and remembrance to the "little piece of string! little piece of string!! little piece of string!!!"
Mr. Davis' next surprise came when Brad sat down with his acoustic while Nathan picked up the melodica and they performed a duet on a Chopin prelude (in Fm maybe?) Nathan was very psyched when he finished. They then segued smoothly and sweetly into Back in Fifteen Minutes. This was another lovely moment with Marc playing slide on his Jazz bass and Andrew on a two-headed hand-drum.
Sometimes True To Nothing was another great surprise, with Marc using his Dano bass to play the repeating figure that Brad usually loops on the Boomerang while Brad stayed on the acoustic. Marc also took the solo spot, with a nice grind of an overdrive on the Dano. The tune climaxed with a classic feedback freakout from Brad, waving that acoustic around and pulling all sorts of howling angst from the instrument.
Brad started the next tune with one of the cooler guitar sounds I've heard from him in a while (and you know that's saying something) deep in space and texture. (I asked him about it afterwards and it's a result of a Pitch Shift/Delay setting on the Lexicon MPX 100 combined with turning on every pedal in his rig. The use of all his overdrive and distortion pedals allows him to create notes just by fingering. No strumming or picking involved. This allows him to hold the mic with his other hand, creating a nice, intimate vocal quality.) The working title for this tune is "Never A Boy Again" but, according to Brad that will most certainly change. It's a song about young people being sent off to war and it is a sad, deeply beautiful tune. I have a feeling we will be hearing it a lot more in the future. I certainly hope so.
Brad dedicated Holly Would to the goddess that has guided this tour. (Someone in the audience who thought the show was about them started yelling about Athena and Brad calmly redirected things.) According to Brad, Holly is the Goddess of cool sunglasses. Unfortunately, Brad had forgotten his, but Andrew pulled out a pair of rhinestone catseye specs for the occasion and wore them with great dignity throughout the rest of the set.
Movin By Lovin' built to a frenzy that reminded me of Otis Day and The Nights ("You make me wanna SHOUT!!") and concluded by dropping perfectly into a jazzy Dogs on Bikes type of ending that made me laugh out loud in happiness.
Nathan announced Before You Were Born as the first song he and Brad wrote together and they had a wonderful time singing it together, trading verses and then harmonizing beautifully. I concur with those who have said that their voices are perfect together.
Nowhere From Here to Go started with a great Mannish Boy blues riff complete with Nathan's harmonica before dropping into the tune itself.
After the first song of the encore, I voiced the desire that had been burning inside for days (weeks, actually.) Because only 2 feet separated me from the band I could speak as if we were sitting over coffee and I quietly asked "Ambrosia Drunk?" Nathan responded, "That's not a bad idea at all". And I was treated to a sweetly wavering version of a tune that has affected me so deeply since the first time I heard it. (Well, we all got to hear it, but I wasn't conscious of anyone else in the room at that point but Nathan and BAM.)
Hunny was enormous fun to watch (and, apparently, to sing) and You Don't Have To Say You're Sorry 'Til You Go. ended the night with both Brad and Nathan on kazoos. And then we all stood around laughing and grinning and whooping and basking and saying things like "Holy shit" and "unbelievable".
Well, I had started out hoping to only hit the show's highlights in this review, but it seems like almost every moment was a highlight and I just can't seem to shut up. The band was as happy and psyched as we were, all four of them definitely feeding off our enthusiasm.
I went to the Iron Horse show with no expectations and was blown away. I went to Savannah's expecting to be blown away and was blown to bits. The amount of sheer FUN these guys had playing together was infectious, resulting in a show-length grin that left many of us with aching faces (I feel at least some of your pain, Maesyn.)
Nathan Moore is a brilliant songwriter and a wonderfully fun and engaging performer. I would take any opportunity to see him perform, with or without the Slip. A person standing next to me had never seen BAM or Nathan before and at one point he asked me about Nathan: "Who IS this guy? He's a rock star!!" (A moment later, they started 19th Nervous Breakdown and I replied, "If you think he was a rock star before, watch this".) Well, I don't know if Nathan is a rock star, but he is most definitely a brightly shining star and I can only offer my deepest thanks to The Slip for introducing me to him.
As for BAM themselves, this tour shows them continuing to grow and expand their prowess, consistently exploring new ways to share their creativity and having large fun in the process.
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
Treasure this band and treasure these days. We are privileged to be witnessing something miraculous as these supremely talented musicians commit themselves to musical truth and beauty and allow us to participate in its growth.
Damn, it's great to be alive!