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Some Girls

January 16th, 2012

Girls – Terminal 5 – January 14, 2012


In case you’re wondering, yes, there are some girls in the hard-to-Google band Girls, three old-school-style backup singers who stood on their own riser and added plenty of oomph to a sold-out show at Terminal 5 on Saturday night. The singers, dressed in matching, flashy tank tops, were just one part of a variety of fashion styles on display by the San Francisco band, which included lead singer Christopher Owens in a skirt, bass player JR White in a leather jacket and a stage decorated with dozens of floral arrangements like a DIY wedding reception. The range of musical styles was just as wide, as Girls worked material from the acclaimed Father, Son, Holy Ghost album.

The set began with high energy, one of the singers screaming, “Are you ready!? Put your hands together,” like she were introducing a soul revue. The crowd responded to the bouncing music by pogo-ing in unison. The middle stretch was decidedly more mellow and lo-fi, with lots of doo-wop throwback and sing-alongs galore. As the energy worked its way back, song-by-song, it was clear that for all the accoutrements, this was truly an old-fashioned rocking guitar band at heart. The guitar playing was like a highlighter on a page of text, making sections pop out, sparking contrast and adding color with subtle riffs and some well-placed slide.

Finally, just when it seemed like Girls had shown all they had, the singer who had earlier hyped the crowd gave an “Are you ready?” scream and the band launched into the heavy Bowie-esque “Die.” It felt like the previous three-quarters of the show had been a warm-up for a completely different band, one that rattled the room with a new energy as the floor became a trampoline once again. —A. Stein

Photos courtesy of Diana Wong | dianawongphoto.com

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Black Taxi Celebrates

January 16th, 2012

Black Taxi – The Bowery Ballroom – January 14, 2012


It doesn’t get much better than seeing Black Taxi at New York City’s Bowery Ballroom on the occasion of a new album, especially with a trio of great bands preceding the four-piece. The guys in Black Taxi work so hard and play so well that a sold-out, raging celebration was a given. From the first moment to the last, the space was jamming, with the crowd raucously reacting to each infectious riff. These dudes know how to work a room, and the whole quiver of instruments came out—with a horn section to boot. It was utterly impossible to tell who was having a better time, the band or the fans.

It isn’t just because the group has so many friends or that everyone in the band is really awesome that Black Taxi has such a loyal fanbase. No, it’s because these guys are just so damn good that rocking out at their shows is, hands down, the best way to spend any given night. And it gets better every time. So if you haven’t seen them already, the next time Black Taxi take the stage do yourself a favor and make it out to support them. And don’t forget your dancing shoes. —JC McIlwaine

Photos courtesy of JC McIlwaine | jcmcilwaine.com

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Talent Beyond Their Years

January 12th, 2012

King Krule – Mercury Lounge – January 11, 2012

(Photo: Dan Rickershauser)

The 17-year old British phenom Archy Marshall, who performs as King Krule, is often cited for the seeming dichotomy between his appearance (lanky, fresh-faced) and his singing voice (deep, resonant, mature). While this may be a charming contradiction, there was nothing precious about King Krule’s performance at a sold-out Mercury Lounge last night—just some solid music from a band that, yes, happens to be quite young. Having only begun performing in the US a few months ago, Marshall displayed confidence with minimal bravado, focused and rarely cracking a smile.

Over the course of a concise set, the band played several numbers from King Krule’s recent self-titled EP along with older numbers (“Baby Blue,” “Greyscale”), lo-fi gems that Marshall originally recorded in his bedroom under the moniker Zoo Kid. As both Zoo Kid and King Krule, Marshall grabs influences from a range of sources, with hints of jazz, soul, sentimental ’50s rockabilly, and even hip-hop and spoken word, as demonstrated on songs like “A Lizard State.”

That song’s frenzy was countered by “Bleak Bake,” from the new EP, which found Marshall playing a jangly riff on his guitar over a subtle dub beat while affixing his eyes on the crowd in a direct, piercing stare before beginning to sing with a calm, laconic delivery. Modestly thanking us for coming out, King Krule ended the set with crowd favorites “The Noose of Jah City” and “Out Getting Ribs,” similar in their hypnotic, looping sound and bleak lyrics. Certainly no youthful optimism here, and perhaps that’s why we like it. —Alena Kastin

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Hard to Categorize but Easy to Like

January 3rd, 2012

Xray Eyeballs – Mercury Lounge – January 2, 2011


Xray Eyeballs are more than just a wall-of-sound concoction of garage low-end reverb with a carefree punk delivery, and they’ve managed to cultivate a faithful following of fans that showed up at Mercury Lounge last night, post-holiday, to play along with the band. The die-hard audience left to drown in the sea of tom-tom-rock reverb and delinquent harmony from O.J. San Felipe and Carly Rabalais, who looked the goth part that’s just one of the varied components in the band’s work. Masterminded by San Felipe less than a year ago, the ex-members of Golden Triangle have already put out a couple of singles on Hozac Records and a full-length on Kanine with another, Splendor Squalor, on the way next month.

Xray Eyeballs are getting away with overdoses of downer-slacker lullabies of the “Let’s get high” Wavves variety, but a long ways away from the sand and surf, instead filtered through the once scuzzy alleys and the bearded-lumberjack chic of Williamsburg. With heavy guitar and vocal effects nearly working against them, they managed to distill sentimental melodies out of the haze, making the act feel like a typical night; a soundtrack of substance excess and disappointment that goes back one generation to the Jesus and Mary Chain or, even further, to the psyche repetition of the Velvet Underground. Living proof that a punk attitude and crass delivery will always be in style over catchy, crafted hooks, Xray Eyeballs aren’t easily categorized, blending together that asphalt-surf reverb and the “My Boyfriend’s Back” garage reinterpretations of Hunx and his Punx’ ’50s style in their own seemingly accidental combinations. —Jason Dean

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Anarchy in the BK

January 3rd, 2012

Leftöver Crack – Music Hall of Williamsburg – January 1, 2012

(Photo: Dan Rickershauser)

New Year’s Day in New York City is a peculiar thing. After the confetti settles, the trash is removed and those with party-hard hangovers awaken to wander the streets like zombies, the city returns to its chaotic normalcy. Cue Leftöver Crack at Music Hall of Williamsburg. The NYC-based punk-rock veterans provided the perfect foil to the commercialized made-for-TV Times Square celebration that most of the world associates with New Years Eve in New York City. And there’s no better way to welcome a New Year than with a fist in the air.

There’s really no separation between Leftöver Crack, true to their egalitarian beliefs, and their audience. During the entire set, different audience members would run onstage and somersault back off into the crowd, one after another after another, like punk-rock lemmings. This kept the first few rows of the audience occupied catching—or attempting to catch—people. The rest of the crowd, and I mean the entire fucking crowd, was in a constant circle-mosh that swept up everything in its path like a tornado of human bodies. Chaotic as it sounds, Leftöver Crack provided a soundtrack that put the whole scene into its proper context.

Playing classics like “One Dead Cop,” “Born to Die,” “Gay Rude Boys Unite” and the Choking Victim cover “500 Channels,” lead singer Stza took breaks between songs to rant about everything from the BART police shooting of Oscar Grant and homophobia to police brutality and the new Muppets movie (“Disney is Tex Richman!”). His screed against private prisons was cut somewhat short, as he said, “I’m too drunk to explain this right now.” This was followed by a short impromptu rendition of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” which made his inability to explain the complexity of the United States’ private-prison system forgivable. The concert ended with him lying on his back onstage and guitarist Brad Logan explaining, “That’s it, you fucking killed him.” The crowd emptied to reveal several deserted shoes sacrificed to the show, the true indicator of a successful punk-rock concert. —Dan Rickershauser

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Gogol Bordello Almost Brings Down the House

January 3rd, 2012

Gogol Bordello – Terminal 5 – December 30, 2011


It’s lucky that Terminal 5 is still standing. If a Gogol Bordello show weren’t enough to turn the place into a pile of rubble, nothing will. The venue withstood more than an hour of people jumping up and down across three floors. It withstood a ruthless barrage of Gypsy punk on the eve of New Year’s Eve. It even held up against Eugene Hütz and company’s deluge of charisma. And Gogol Bordello bleeds plenty of it. It’s as if this band—hailing from Ukraine, Ecuador, China/Scotland, Russia, Ethiopia, Israel and the U.S. of A—formed as an international supergroup with punk-rock super powers designed to put a captivated rock audience under a hypnotic sing-along spell.

With the audience joining in on the very first lines of the show, “Ai ai ai ai, a-woo hoo hoo” from “Avenue B,” practically the entire show was one giant sing-along. While bandmates Pedro Erazo and Elizabeth Sun dabbled in percussion instruments and tambourines, they spent a majority of their time conducting the sold-out audience like it was another instrument, luring everyone to clap, jump, sing and lose their shit at all the appropriate moments.

Although a mere night away from New Year’s Eve, everyone came ready to party, including Hütz, who sloshed away at a bottle of red wine, swinging it back and forth during choruses and splashing the front row like a drunken Ukrainian sea captain. The show ended with a formidable five-song encore. Hütz invited the audience to an after-party elsewhere and reminded everyone that they would be playing another show at Terminal 5 the following night. The band then proceeded to barrel through one final song, “Sacred Darling.” As hard as you think you may have partied these past few days, I can guarantee this band partied harder. —Dan Rickershauser

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Patti Smith Brandishes a Weapon

December 30th, 2011

Patti Smith and Her Band – The Bowery Ballroom – December 29, 2011


Last night, on the eve of her 65th birthday, Patti Smith and her band began their sold-out three-night run at The Bowery Ballroom, just as they’ve done for the past 14 years. After beginning the show with intense, energetic versions of “Space Monkey,” “25th Floor” and “Birdland,” Smith greeted the hometown crowd, chatting in her typical familiar way, and described the many international travels and adventures she and the band experienced over the past year. “But there’s nothing like New York!” shouted out an overzealous crowd member. Smith paused, staring out, stone-faced, as a slight tension filled the room. “This is my fuckin’ punch line,” she proclaimed, with that ever-present twinkle in her eye.

In addition to her signature sharp attitude and wit, Smith’s performance was on point as well, as she interwove her spoken word with songs from the span of her career, including renditions of “Summer Cannibals,” “My Blakean Year,” “Don’t Say Nothing,” and crowd-pleasers like “Gloria,” and “Pissing in a River.” Throughout, longtime guitarist Lenny Kaye peppered the tunes with vigorous, intricate guitar solos. Of course, Smith is also known for her activism and political views, and in the past year has been a great supporter of the #Occupy movement. In addition to performing rallying songs like “People Have the Power,” she shouted messages of inspiration to the crowd throughout the set, encouraging us to speak out and create art, as well as suggesting that we occupy and focus efforts around the struggling city of Detroit.

When the clock struck midnight, everyone in the venue sang “Happy Birthday” to Smith, and the band struck up a snarling version of “Rock N Roll Nigger,” as the singer-songwriter peeled off her blazer, danced around and shredded away on an electric guitar, not unlike how she may have looked back when the song was released in 1978. “Behold the weapon of my generation!” Smith shouted, holding up her electric guitar. “It’s the only fucking weapon you need!” And with a few more strums and a wave to the crowd, she left the stage, a triumphant way to usher in her 65th year. —Alena Kastin

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The Second Crazy Night

December 21st, 2011

Matisyahu – Music Hall of Williamsburg – December 20, 2011


If anything, 2011 has been a year of many unsuspected news stories—leaders of countries have fallen, protests filled streets around the world and Matisyahu shaved his iconic beard. Call it the tweet heard ’round the world, as last Tuesday Matisyahu shared a picture of his newly shaven face on Twitter, leaving many fans wondering if this marked the end of his 10-year association with Chassidic Judaism. But beard or no beard, Matisyahu proved on Tuesday night at Music Hall of Williamsburg that his Jewish faith is still integral to his life, pulling out all the stops to celebrate Hanukkah on his second of eight shows scheduled to celebrate the Festival of Lights.

And what better way to celebrate the Festival of Lights than with a gigantic disco ball dreidel that splashed the Music Hall with a beautiful ocean of color, bringing everyone in the room to pull out their phones and snap pictures of this most epic of dreidels? Top it all off with the lighting of a waist-high menorah, Matisyahu twirling around the stage like a skanking ballet dancer and the general feeling of joyous revelry and you’ve got one hell of a Hanukkah celebration. With all this excitement, it may have been easy to overlook Matisyahu’s music. But the sheer dynamism of his genre-blurring set was a spectacle in itself. Jumping from moments of reggae, rap, guitar jams, dub, dubstep and back (sometimes in the same song), Matisyahu’s ability to find the intersection of these genres has long been described as his greatest musical asset. Much to his credit, Matisyahu’s drummer Joe Tomino did a superb job holding together the band through this journey of genres.

Perhaps as a result of this eclectic mix of genres, the crowd was equally eclectic—a healthy mix of dreadlocks and yarmulkes, fans both young and old of all races, backgrounds and creeds. Matis’s set featured a well-spread sampling of his seven-year career, playing favorites “King Without a Crown,” “Jerusalem” and “One Day.” He kicked off his encore beatboxing over a cellist he met in the subway on the way to the concert. Likely improvised, it was strikingly beautiful. And whatever this new beardless phase means for his spiritual development, it seems that in every other way Matisyahu still has a strong grasp on his musical virtuosity that fans from all walks of life have learned to love. —Dan Rickershauser

Photos courtesy of Dan Rickershauser

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A Holiday Party from the Future

December 19th, 2011

Twin Sister – The Bowery Ballroom – December 17, 2011

Twin Sister

The Bowery Ballroom was packed full of revelers for Twin Sister’s headlining set on Saturday night, as part of a sold-out holiday-themed show sponsored by ubiquitous music Web site Brooklyn Vegan. The five-piece specializes in a mellow style of spaced-out disco, the likes of which might be at home on an easy-listening station—on Mars. Equal parts soothing, chilling, ethereal and danceable, the music contains a unique otherworldly quality, largely due to singer Andrea Estella’s singular voice, which ranges from smooth and velvety to a high-pitched coo.

Although the band is fairly young (both in inception and members’ ages), they’ve already released a couple EPs and a full-length record since forming in 2008, and the group played a nice selection of songs from those discs during the set. Upbeat ones, like “Stop” and “Bad Street,” got the crowd moving, while “Lady Daydream” and “Eastern Green” enveloped the audience with slow, trippy grooves. “Gene Ciampi” contained a spaghetti western vibe, while the dramatic crooner “Spain” would fit nicely as a futuristic James Bond theme.

Openers Widowspeak also delivered a strong set: a beautiful interplay of warm reverb and singer Molly Hamilton’s soft, textured voice. Despite receiving a good deal of rapturous praise over the past year for their ’90s-inspired hazy rock, the band seemed endearingly modest, and when Hamilton shyly said, “Happy holidays” at the end of the set, flashing an awkward thumbs up, she seemed to almost immediately cringe with embarrassment, rushing to grab her gear and get offstage. While Widowspeak and Twin Sister may not be the kind of music you associate with your typical holiday party, they sure seemed to get the folks in the crowd in the (futuristic, spacey, tripped-out) holiday spirit last night. —Alena Kastin

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MMJ at MSG

December 15th, 2011

My Morning Jacket – Madison Square Garden – December 14, 2011


Sure, it’s an impressive feat to pull the sword out of the stone. But what really matters is if you can slay the dragon once you’ve got that weapon in your hand. And last night, My Morning Jacket, having the Excalibur of arena rock shows in their grip, killed the beast that is Madison Square Garden like few can. Opening with “Victory Dance,” the stage awash in fiery orange light, Jim James seemed to be leading the amped crowd into battle with him. From there it was two straight hours of MMJ favorites, special guests and guns-a-blazing guitar jams. Each song seemed to top the previous one with barely a pause in between—the band and crowd stepping up a ladder one rung at a time until finally we all looked down with a collective “Whoa! How did we get up this high?”

James raced around the stage like an uncaged animal bound with contagious energy, using every inch of real estate, occasionally with a towel awkwardly around his head, other times more dramatically wrapped in a cape. In a show that was an unending highlight reel, my personal favorite stretch included “Smokin’ from Shootin’,” which led into the quintessential MMJ jam with Patrick Hallahan taking control on drums before dissolving into a long, electronic “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, Pt. 2.” This was impossibly capped by a thrust-your-arms-in-the-air, utterly relentless “Off the Record.” Perhaps equally impressive were the quiet moments, particularly a gorgeous version of “Golden” with Carl Broemel moving to pedal steel, James on acoustic and the crowd as quiet and attentive as an MSG audience can be.

Songs off Circuital fit right in with older material. But not to rest on the power of their normal repertoire, the band invited several guests onstage to add new twists: members of opener Band of Horses, a horn section that punctuated MMJ favorites like “Dancefloors” and Brian Jackson, who added flute to a superlative version of “Dondante” and a perfect cover of Gil Scott Heron’s “The Bottle” (on which he originally played). The show ended just as strongly as it had started, with a seven-song encore, including James solo acoustic on “Bermuda Highway” and the always explosive “One Big Holiday,” which had the mighty dragon of MSG lying defeated in a heap and yet still screaming for more. —A. Stein

Photos courtesy of Michael Jurick | music.jurick.net

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A Guitar Hero Takes the Stage

December 14th, 2011

Gary Clark Jr. – Mercury Lounge – December 13, 2011


Gary Clark Jr. took the stage last night at Mercury Lounge and hit one chord on his guitar. The note hung in the air, resonating with distortion and feedback for several minutes. As the energy in the sold-out room grew, so did the anticipation and the expectation, until the band finally joined him in an explosion of rock and roll. Clark spent the better half of the next 80 minutes single-handedly reinvigorating the blues genre. His guitar playing was a sight to behold. When he got rolling, his playing seemed to grow fangs, vicious, rip-the-flesh-off-the-bone kind of stuff. But Clark was the full package, and his voice was as equally impressive, sweet, soulful and pure.

The comparisons are easy because he made them clear throughout his set: Jimi Hendrix, yes, but also the straight blues of Robert Johnson, the soulful R&B of Marvin Gaye on “Things Are Changing” and the unfettered rockabilly of Chuck Berry on “Going Out That Back Door.” The material is familiar—trains coming and going in time with love sought and lost—but we haven’t heard it like this, not for a long time. One 10-minute stretch summed it all up: A long distorted note made way for a blues jam that finally coalesced around Hendrix’s “Third Stone from the Sun” before melting in a fury of guitar, bass and drums and becoming a ferocious “Gotta Set You Straight.”

After multiple red-meat solos, Clark stepped back and played rhythm while the rest of his band revealed they were a full-throated, not-too-shabby power trio of their own. Their jam dissolved into a drum solo before Clark re-emerged, weaving three or more mind-altering guitar solos with the “Third Stone” theme before finally coming to an end to let awestruck concertgoers process what they had just witnessed. Later, Clark was equally compelling on his own, playing two songs solo including a beautiful version of the traditional “Freight Train.” The set concluded well after midnight with his “hit” song, “Bright Lights,” which encapsulated the show with the bounty of pitch-perfect vocals, overlapping guitar solos, its NYC setting and the boast that “you’re going to know my name by the end of the night.” It ain’t bragging if it’s true. —A. Stein

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You Can’t Stop Sharon Jones

December 14th, 2011

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings – The Bowery Ballroom – December 13, 2011


We waited together, packed shoulder to shoulder. The band was onstage but its fundamental element was missing, the SJ to the backdrop’s SJDK—because, quite simply, Sharon Jones makes Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. It’s her presence and voice that give the band an identity. Without her, the Dap-Kings are a talented nine-piece band in similar suits. So when Jones finally appeared, wearing a golden brown ruffled sequin dress, the collective mood noticeably shifted. We finally saw whom we came to see.

For her part, Jones performed with abundant focus and energy, harkening back to soul singer/performer extraordinaire James Brown. Even before the music started, guitarist Binky Griptite announced each of Jones’s notable songs to a short band review, identical to the sequence of a Brown show. And, like Brown, Jones sings, dances and emotes herself to the point of exhaustion. After a performance of the ancestry dance song, a long narrative explanation of her dance style, she huffed and paced. But like Muhammad Ali in the ring, her display seemed as such a part of the performance as it was a breather. She quickly recovered. —Jared Levy

Photos courtesy of Alexis Maindrault | rockinpix.com

(Tonight’s Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings show at The Bowery Ballroom is sold out.)

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A War on Drugs That Makes Sense

December 12th, 2011

The War on Drugs – The Bowery Ballroom – December 11, 2011


You know how in certain kinds of movies, there’s that straight-laced annoying guy who accidentally eats the wrong brownies and all of the sudden he’s on some psychedelic introspective journey? Well something like that is happening to indie rock right now, with several bands providing the baked goods and your straight-up guitar/bass/ drums/keys shoegazing pop taking off its shoes and shirt and losing itself in the moment. Leading that charge is the War on Drugs, the Philadelphia band that turned a Sunday night rock show at The Bowery Ballroom into a psych-pop head-trip.

The War on Drugs seemed to play their music inside out, with hairy stretches of music occasionally broken up by lyrics. Songs stretched past their end point with short, electrifying noise jams persisting in the space between; harmonica and sax providing a cosmic edge. The music wasn’t focused on a catch or a hook or a chorus for the bouncing crowd to sing along to—rather it seemed to generate its own alternate reality with nettled guitar and off-meter drumming and Blood on the Tracks-era songsmanship. And the driver was Dave Hartley’s bass, playing nonstop Dali-melting-clocks riffs.

The show was punctuated by tunes from the band’s acclaimed 2011 release, Slave Ambient, but when you’re playing a sold-out show, there’s little reason to devote too much time to selling a new album and the War on Drugs bounced through their catalog nicely. Songs flowed into one another with a dreamy stream of consciousness until it felt like you might be dreaming because it sounded like they were playing the Grateful Dead. Indeed, it’s not everyday you get to hear a droning, silly-putty cover of “Touch of Grey” at The Bowery Ballroom by a band passing around a bottle of Maker’s Mark, but that’s the kind of thing that happens when you eat the brownies the War on Drugs are making these days. —A. Stein

Photos courtesy of Mike Benigno | mikebenigno.wordpress.com

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Laura Marling Plays the McKittrick Hotel

December 12th, 2011

Laura Marling – McKittrick Hotel – December 11, 2011


The McKittrick Hotel has become famous for its Sleep No More performances, so to see a Laura Marling show in its ballroom delighted some while confusing others. The dark underground space was perfect for the singer-songwriter—incredibly beautiful and built for quiet audiences and music with an eerie edge. Marling played a short set, starting with songs from her most recent record, A Creature I Don’t Know, with “Sophia” being a particular highlight. Surrounded by Christmas trees but never one for much between-song banter, she acknowledged her onstage likeness to a blonde Christmas fairy. Marling, her voice crystal clear, moved onto songs from her second album, I Speak Because I Can, and “Alpha Swallows” resonated perfectly in the space. Finishing with “Rambling Man,” she thanked everyone and disappeared behind a black curtain, hopefully to be seen again. —Lauren Glucksman

Photos courtesy of JC McIlwaine | jcmcilwaine.com

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Home for the Holidays

December 12th, 2011

The Antlers – Webster Hall – December 10, 2011

(Photo: Dan Rickershauser)

Saturday night was really the first night we’ve had in New York City that felt like the harsh and relentless winter to which we’re all accustomed. Maybe it was the biting cold air or maybe it was the thousands of drunken Santa Clauses strewn across the city. Whatever marked the occasion, there couldn’t be a more appropriate soundtrack to changing seasons than the music of the Antlers. Not just because of the band’s unintentionally festive name, but because the Antlers’ unique brand of fragile harmonies and heartfelt songwriting perfectly reflects the subtle splendor of winter that just barely makes the season bearable.

Their music showcases a unique type of beauty, one that rises from singer Peter Silberman’s dark songwriting. The group’s critically acclaimed 2009 release, Hospice, told the story of an emotionally abusive relationship through the analogy of a hospice worker and a patient. If that sounds depressing, the music Silberman’s crafted around the theme is anything but. For the Brooklyn-based Antlers, Saturday’s show at Webster Hall was a homecoming of sorts, returning to the U.S. from a long string of performances across Europe. The set was comprised mostly of songs off their latest release, the also critically acclaimed Burst Apart. And the defining moments were the songs that required careful listening before rewarding listeners by upping the volume and intensity to play out the final moments.

This was especially true with “Rolled Together,” which started softly and gently before a climactic crescendo. The band finished with a ghostly rendition of “Putting the Dog to Sleep” before returning to play a three-song encore. “The difference between now and a couple years ago is not lost on us,” remarked Silberman of a sold-out Webster Hall before finishing the encore with “Epilogue” (I dare you to find a more appropriately titled finale). With the goose-bump inducing nature of Silberman’s sharp falsetto serenades, it was a perfect capstone to a compelling show, by chance scheduled at the most perfect time of the year to hear it. —Dan Rickershauser

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