Jeff
Austin and The Here and Now 3/5/14 @ The Cabooze, Minneapolis , MN
After infrequently
frequenting the Twin Cities over the past several years, Jeff Austin
has graced our lucky presence twice now in the past four months.
First, of course, with Yonder Mountain String Band at First Avenue,
and most recently he opened the winter mini-tour with The Here and
Now at Minneapolis’ The Cabooze on March 5th.
With
Jeff on mandolin, the “incomparable” Danny Barnes on banjo, and
the duo of Larry and Jenny Keel on guitar and bass, the musicianship
was phenomenal. The show could have been a class on how to dominate
your instrument, play with passion and how to feel connected to your
fellow musicians and the audience. It wasn’t super packed and with
no photo pit it was very easy to feel like you were on stage with
them. Aside from a few small audio issues with Danny’s mic, the
sound was thick, warm and deep, contrasting perfectly with the
crispness of Larry’s incredibly fast flat-picking. And there’s no
way to experience the stage presence of Jeff Austin without being up
close to watch him pour all of his energy and soul into his music.
I
won’t bore you with a run through of the setlist, mostly because
it’s incomplete and not quite right! Even the stage setlist was a
rough guideline as the song titles I knew were rearranged according
to my notes. In addition all the taper shows available from this tour
have partial setlists or no track names at all! At least I’m not
alone.
After starting with a
few straightforward, more traditional bluegrass tunes, they dove into
a song called, (I think,) “Don’t Give Me Up.” This turned out
to be one of the two bust out jam vessels for the evening. As it
stretched it’s legs with a heavy reggae backbeat provided by Jeff,
Larry began using his effects pedals to add ethereal, trance-y tones.
Not that I wouldn’t think it possible, but the shows I’ve
listened to were by far not this jammy, and it wouldn’t be the only time in the show that things got out there, no this was
just a precursor to stranger times.
The
other jam of the night was “Rag Doll.” Very interesting to hear
it in a different arrangement than usual with Yonder. The mid-section
of the song got very far from the core with heavy, dark riffs and
experimental tones. Compare it to the jam in Mike’s song or maybe
even a Free if I may. After twelve minutes I thought it might segue,
but all of a sudden, out out the depths, came the chorus reprise.
Huge moment for the night, every lucky person there went nuts. Again,
fairly unexpected but definitely appreciated.
These two were the
big anchors coming in at nos. 4 and 9 respectively out of a 14-15
song set. Surrounding them were more standard bluegrass tunes, with
duties of singing shared by everyone. Danny and Larry got their tunes
in and Jenny even led one or two towards the end.
All
in all a great night. Fantastic musicians loving life and loving
playing together. Huge thanks for blistering our butts on one of the
last coldest nights of our nasty winter, we needed it. Feel free to
stop back anytime!
audio
link thanks to Tommy The Beard:
https://archive.org/details/ja2014-03-05
