Sunday Evening
I just returned home from test driving a bunch of different cars with Stephanie. Let me tell you, there are a lot of different types of car sales people out there... Anyways, I wanted to continue talking about the Shawn Mullins concert. If you haven't read my last posting, then you should scroll down and read that one first. Then come back and read this one.
Go ahead. I'll wait.
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Okay. Now that you are back, the concert itself:
We entered the Linda and discovered that it is a rather cozy place. The chairs are wide and relatively comfortable. There is plenty of leg room. The ceiling is high and the place is dimly lit. Cozy.
There weren't many people seated, which meant that there were plenty of open seats to choose from. We sat a little left of center and two rows back from the stage.
The stage set up was simple. There was a microphone stand, two monitors, two guitars, and a stool with a bottle of water and capo on it.
Soon, a guy came up and tuned one of the guitars. Then another guy came up and announced that the show would be recorded and replayed on WAMC. He told us to clap so that they could adjust the recording equipment. We did. The sound of applause was not very loud. Only about 1/4th of the 120-150 seats (I guesstimated) were populated. The guy gestured to us to stop clapping. Then he welcomed Shawn to the stage and the lights dimmed further.
Shawn emerged from a door off to the side of the stage. He grabbed a guitar and said that he was going to start with some new songs. Then, he added, "I hope you don't mind." He played For America, which started out simple and grew dynamically. He did that with a lot of his songs throughout the night. I took a few pictures.
He played five or six new songs (they were all wonderful) before moving into his older ones. He introduced All in My Head as being a song that he recorded as a demo a few years ago and sent it in to Scrubs (the TV show) as a potential theme song. He said that it was a crappy demo with out of tune guitars and what not. Then he pointed out that the song appeared on their next episode. Which I knew because I had heard it on Scrubs, which is my favorite show, and then went online to see if he had a new CD coming out because I knew I hadn't heard the song before. I couldn't find the song anywhere until his new CD was being advertised with that song and I thought, "this isn't a new song. I heard it on Scrubs months ago..."
Highlights of the show for me were Blue as You and Beautiful Wreck. He told stories about how both of those songs came to be. He joked that he would play a "medley" of his "hit" later on.
He ended the show with Lullaby.
Then, he returned for an encore and played House of the Rising Sun, which is a song that I some times cover.
Stephanie was excited when Shawn announced that "some of you" had met his dog, Jack.
I was excited about the whole thing. I had an amazing time. This was one of my greatest concert-going experiences ever.
As I watched Shawn perform, I took notes in my head. He played very dynamically -- something that seems obvious for a performer to do, but is something that's easy to forget about when you are thinking about all of the other things that are also important. He would often step back from the mic and strum really hard or really soft or hard and then soft. He stomped his foot and rocked his body. He was entertaining for the entire show, which lasted for about an hour and forty-five minutes.
When the show was over, Stephanie and I went to Starbucks. We were both quite amazed and we had had a wonderful time.
Go ahead. I'll wait.
-----------
Okay. Now that you are back, the concert itself:
We entered the Linda and discovered that it is a rather cozy place. The chairs are wide and relatively comfortable. There is plenty of leg room. The ceiling is high and the place is dimly lit. Cozy.
There weren't many people seated, which meant that there were plenty of open seats to choose from. We sat a little left of center and two rows back from the stage.
The stage set up was simple. There was a microphone stand, two monitors, two guitars, and a stool with a bottle of water and capo on it.
Soon, a guy came up and tuned one of the guitars. Then another guy came up and announced that the show would be recorded and replayed on WAMC. He told us to clap so that they could adjust the recording equipment. We did. The sound of applause was not very loud. Only about 1/4th of the 120-150 seats (I guesstimated) were populated. The guy gestured to us to stop clapping. Then he welcomed Shawn to the stage and the lights dimmed further.
Shawn emerged from a door off to the side of the stage. He grabbed a guitar and said that he was going to start with some new songs. Then, he added, "I hope you don't mind." He played For America, which started out simple and grew dynamically. He did that with a lot of his songs throughout the night. I took a few pictures.
He played five or six new songs (they were all wonderful) before moving into his older ones. He introduced All in My Head as being a song that he recorded as a demo a few years ago and sent it in to Scrubs (the TV show) as a potential theme song. He said that it was a crappy demo with out of tune guitars and what not. Then he pointed out that the song appeared on their next episode. Which I knew because I had heard it on Scrubs, which is my favorite show, and then went online to see if he had a new CD coming out because I knew I hadn't heard the song before. I couldn't find the song anywhere until his new CD was being advertised with that song and I thought, "this isn't a new song. I heard it on Scrubs months ago..."
Highlights of the show for me were Blue as You and Beautiful Wreck. He told stories about how both of those songs came to be. He joked that he would play a "medley" of his "hit" later on.
He ended the show with Lullaby.
Then, he returned for an encore and played House of the Rising Sun, which is a song that I some times cover.
Stephanie was excited when Shawn announced that "some of you" had met his dog, Jack.
I was excited about the whole thing. I had an amazing time. This was one of my greatest concert-going experiences ever.
As I watched Shawn perform, I took notes in my head. He played very dynamically -- something that seems obvious for a performer to do, but is something that's easy to forget about when you are thinking about all of the other things that are also important. He would often step back from the mic and strum really hard or really soft or hard and then soft. He stomped his foot and rocked his body. He was entertaining for the entire show, which lasted for about an hour and forty-five minutes.
When the show was over, Stephanie and I went to Starbucks. We were both quite amazed and we had had a wonderful time.
