matisyahu 9/3

Another great night outdoors at Boarding House Park in Lowell; tonight it's to see Matisyahu. If this is a new name for you, check out this video of One Day on YouTube. It's one of those ear worm songs that I think everyone has heard by now. He performed it as the closer at tonight's show, inviting all the kids in the audience to come up on stage to sing along. We all felt good. If we'd all had lighters, we'd have had them lit.

As far as audience participation goes, in terms of singing, that was the most user-friendly song by far. The rest of the night was all about mosh pit participation - the climax of that being when Matisyahu jumps off the stage into the pit and the moshers roll him around some, then he manages to stand up on someone's shoulders to heaps of applause, then he jumps back on stage to finish the song. We'd done well to sit way back near the sound board, where everyone was rocking, but in a more sedate way.

We had shown up at the park a few hours early, just as the band (minus Matisyahu) was about to start their sound check. We found excellent seats, up near the front, dead center, and plunked ourselves down. Then the band began to play. In the middle of the first song I yelled to Dennis, "This is too loud, I've got to move back." "I can't hear you," he says, "tell me when the song's finished." Which I did, and he concurred, so back we moved. Much better. Because they are loud - very good, but loud.

This guy can definitely sing, and the band, well, it can definitely play. Where to start? We've got reggae, we've got hip hop, reggae rock, rap and scat - wrapped around, as the handbill says, "his religious devotion" (he is a Hasidic Jew from New York). You know me, I couldn't hear half of what he was singing, but in this case, it was because I was so caught up in the music. A lot of the night I just sat back in my chair, closed my eyes and fell into the music. Between the reggae romps, the band played these great noise-filled instrumentals, one sound leading to another and I found it rather hypnotic. Matisyahu's singing was just as masterful, effortlessly shifting from hip hop to soulful reggae, then powering it up for rap, and forgive me for not knowing the name of the song, but there's one where he scatted the whole thing using some serious vocal calisthenics.

His set included a rap with guest artist, Nelson, a Jewish gospel singer, who came back to sing one song solo as the first song of the encore. When he left the stage, Matisyahu came on and got us all up, swaying to the music, with our arms held high, each with their index finger signifying "one," punching at the air on "One Day." Peace and a lot of harmony.

The opener tonight was iLa Mawana, billed as a reggae band out of Boston. And indeed, they do play reggae. The only thing is, the lead singer sings pop. An unusual combination that was new to me.

great big sea 8/26

What an absolute hoot! I had no idea a Great Big Sea concert was a dancing party. But that's what they do and that's what their fans do. They're so good that the fans are up dancing before the guys have even plugged in. And here I thought there'd be me and a couple hundred fans to see a band that most people never heard of. Boy was I wrong. It was the biggest crowd of the season for the Lowell Music Series at Boarding House Park. I have no idea how many people can fit in the park, but let's say it's 500; tonight it looked like a thousand, to a body standing, dancing, singing, and just general all-around grooving the band from The Rock - Newfoundland, Canada. Dedicated fans - the kind who know every lyric of every song and can sing them loud. I got the distinct feeling that Great Big Sea fans go home happy after every show. I don't see how it could be any different.

I've got a bit of a soft ear for the music out of Atlantic Canada - the Acadian/Celtic sound - and when that music moves farther east to Newfoundland, it takes on a huge maritime flavor. I am reminded some of Stan Rogers, another Canadian singer who defined maritime folk for me. But Stan sure didn't have harmonies going for him like these guys do. One of the most beautiful sounds on earth is a capella voices in four-part harmony. And when they weren't doing harmonies, the one with the pretty voice, Sean McCann, leads the ballad love songs, and pretty much all the rest are led by the hearty voiced Alan Doyle - it's these ones that tend to get raucous and have the crowd in wild delight. They did two sets, the first leaning on the Celtic side, the second more folk-rock, with accordion, guitars, flute, drums, fiddle, bohran in and out of every song as needed; the real show stopper was Bob Hallet playing the violin in "Merrimack," with the kind of fervor that puts me in mind of Neil Young on a crazy night.

These guys emanate happy, and it's infectious. You can't help but smile big.

I couldn't get any pictures of the band - they were in constant motion and my little camera is never going to get that night shot. I turned my camera on the audience, and this one survived the delete bin, strictly for the arty red shadings in it.

bob dylan 8/21

It took Bob to get me down to the House of Blues in Boston, the former Avalon, just behind Fenway Park, home to the Boston Red Sox. I never much liked the Avalon - tight security, difficult sight lines - so it seems much improved in its new incarnation, with three levels, the third level being stadium seating, which is where I sat with my eyes glued on Bob all night. I read reviews of some of the previous shows on the tour and people are always talking about this being their 25th show or 76th show, or some other big number, and it puts me in my place - I'm a take it or leave it fan, tonight's show is only my seventh, the last time being in 2006, a time when Bob stood behind the keyboard all night. I'd heard that he was varying that up a bit this tour, and the change was welcome. He opened with Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat and Don't Think Twice, both on keyboard, then switched to harp (I don't know if I'd call it blistering, but it was real) for Things Have Changed and Tangled Up In Blue. But it was Beyond Here Lies Nothing, with Bob playing his Fender for the first time tonight that got the night moving for me - terrific solo from Bob, and he and Charlie Sexton were in some sort of groove. From keyboard to harp to guitar, Bob traveled all night. He seemed to be in a jocular mood, particularly evident when he moved to center stage and did a little play acting for the benefit of the crowd. I thought he was going to break into a two-step at one point. Perhaps it was on account of it being the last night of the tour. As one would have expected, he encored with Like A Rolling Stone and All Along The Watchtower, and having been to seven shows, I've probably heard both of them seven times now; but things have changed, at least for Watchtower - a different arrangement, and it's given it a whole new life. Rather than ending the show there, they moved into Blowin In The Wind, an unexpected but welcome surprise. I think I even sang along, quite an unusual event for me at a Bob show, when mostly I haven't got a clue what he's singing. There's no question, if you want to be a Bob fan, you've got to pay attention.

Here's the setlist:
Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat, Don't Think Twice, Things Have Changed, Tangled Up In Blue, Beyond Here Lies Nothin, Mississippi, Summer Days, Tryin To Get To Heaven, High Water (for Charlie Patton), Simple Twist Of Fate, Highway 61 Revisted, Blind Willie McTell, Thunder On The Mountain, Ballad Of A Thin Man, Like A Rolling Stone, All Along The Watchtower, Blowin In The Wind

mavis staples 8/19

Mavis is still belting it out, good and strong. A night of soul and gospel. My knowledge of Mavis is limited to say the least - her brilliant performance with the Staples Singers on The Weight with The Band for The Last Waltz, and not again until listening to her 2007 album, "We'll Never Turn Back," which I'd picked up on the strength of its producer, Ry Cooder. That was enough of a taste to get me down to the Lowell Summer Music Series to catch her set at Boarding House Park. The backup singers, which include her sister, Yvonne, pull off some great harmonies, opening with an a capella song, and continuing strong for the rest of the night. Mavis' gospel is heavily mixed with her civil rights activism, and in a rather trendy fashion, she's all PC. I'm not a big fan of politics, especially not in music, so she kind of lost me there. There was one grand moment in the show, and I can't even remember the song - it might have been "I'll Take You There" - Mavis had left the stage at that point, and the band just carried on, driving the music faster, almost in a catatonic fit; all I remember now is the non-Yvonne female back-up singer incredulously playing the tambourine, matching the guitar and its barreling pace that was sustained long past what you'd think possible. With everyone else on the stage contributing to the barrelhouse, it felt like a moment of true grit. Quite awesome.

Opening for Mavis Staples tonight was Jen Kearney & The Lost Onion, local to the area, playing a fusion of Latin and R&B with a nice brass sound.