Lots of good music in town over the weekend. On Friday, I left work, picked Toddler YHT up from daycare, and headed in the direction of Hardywood, where a three band bill was kicking off at 6 p.m.
My daughter almost always asks if she can come when I’m getting ready to head out for a show, even when it’s a later show and she’s already in her pajamas. Still, she needed a little coaxing when on the way out of daycare.
“Guess what? We’re going to a concert!”
“…”
“The concert will have a food truck that makes grilled cheeses…”
“Let’s go!”
Dori Freeman was my main motivating factor. She has a new album coming out next month, and I’d hoped to hear that new material, but it turned out that hers was the second set. Knowing that we’d probably only be able to hang around for a few songs past 7 p.m., we stopped by the food truck, ate dinner at a table in the parking lot, and headed inside to split an ice cream sandwich and catch what we could of the first act, NYC-based Brother Roy.
The voice I heard while we were outside eating sounded quite a bit like Conor Oberst’s, but once I could follow the lyrics a little more closely, Brother Roy — performing solo with a keyboard — reminded me more of Randy Newman. The tune that really grabbed my attention was “Carolina,” a montage of idealized southern living images with a hint of Newman’s wry, hyperbolic humor. Really neat.
Brother Roy made a fan out of Toddler YHT as well. She even made me hold our ice cream sandwich so she could clap.
You Hear That 