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  1. #1
    Stone Stone's Avatar
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    Neko Case + Emmylou Harris = Serious

    My wife and I went to see this wonderful concert on Saturday night at Calvin College. I don't have time right now for a long review, but let me put it to you this way: After Neko's set was done, I thought that Emmylou was going to have a lot to live up to, and really she didn't (although her set was good). Neko's band and Neko were excellent. She has some real quality musicians playing with her, and their renditions of Neko's songs were spot on. They played most of the songs off of Blacklisted and many off Fox Confessor. If you get a chance to see her, I highly recommend it. Here's what a local reviewer said about the show:

    The legendary Emmylou Harris and alt-country/indie-pop fave Neko Case brought boatloads of stellar harmonies, classic country textures and poignant songs to the Calvin College Fieldhouse, wrapping up the college’s biggest and most successful Festival of Faith and Music ever.

    Because the concert ended after Press deadlines, I’ll have a full review of Saturday’s show in Monday’s Your Life section. But here are some highlights to tide you over:


    Harris’ 94-minute set -- performed in a quartet with a percussionist, guitarist and bassist -- covered music spanning her three-decades-plus career, from 1975’s “Pieces of the Sky” to 2006’s “All the Roadrunning” (recorded with Mark Knopler).


    Songs from 1999’s “Red Dirt Girl” and 2003’s “Stumble into Grace,” as well as heartfelt renditions of Neil Young’s “After the Goldrush,” Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” and Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s “Goin’ Back to Harlan.”


    In the only shared Harris/Case double-bill of the year (set up by Calvin’s Ken Heffner), Case and her five-piece band opened the night with a full, 55-minute set heavy on songs from her latest album, “Fox Confessor Brings the Flood,” including bracing versions of “Hold On, Hold On” and “Star Witness.” Her set actually had more twang than Harris.
    And the world will turn to flowing pink vapor stew.

  2. #2
    Rocket Surgeon Swish's Avatar
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    You lucky bastard.

    Quote Originally Posted by Stone
    My wife and I went to see this wonderful concert on Saturday night at Calvin College. I don't have time right now for a long review, but let me put it to you this way: After Neko's set was done, I thought that Emmylou was going to have a lot to live up to, and really she didn't (although her set was good). Neko's band and Neko were excellent. She has some real quality musicians playing with her, and their renditions of Neko's songs were spot on. They played most of the songs off of Blacklisted and many off Fox Confessor. If you get a chance to see her, I highly recommend it. Here's what a local reviewer said about the show:

    The legendary Emmylou Harris and alt-country/indie-pop fave Neko Case brought boatloads of stellar harmonies, classic country textures and poignant songs to the Calvin College Fieldhouse, wrapping up the college’s biggest and most successful Festival of Faith and Music ever.

    Because the concert ended after Press deadlines, I’ll have a full review of Saturday’s show in Monday’s Your Life section. But here are some highlights to tide you over:


    Harris’ 94-minute set -- performed in a quartet with a percussionist, guitarist and bassist -- covered music spanning her three-decades-plus career, from 1975’s “Pieces of the Sky” to 2006’s “All the Roadrunning” (recorded with Mark Knopler).


    Songs from 1999’s “Red Dirt Girl” and 2003’s “Stumble into Grace,” as well as heartfelt renditions of Neil Young’s “After the Goldrush,” Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” and Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s “Goin’ Back to Harlan.”


    In the only shared Harris/Case double-bill of the year (set up by Calvin’s Ken Heffner), Case and her five-piece band opened the night with a full, 55-minute set heavy on songs from her latest album, “Fox Confessor Brings the Flood,” including bracing versions of “Hold On, Hold On” and “Star Witness.” Her set actually had more twang than Harris.
    I've seen Emmylou live and it was most excellent, but I would give my right nu....never mind....let's just say I really want to see Neko really bad. We have a Lyle Lovett / kd lang show coming up in June, but I guess I need to see if Neko will get anywhere close to us. If she does, I'm all over it!

    Swish
    I call my bathroom Jim instead of John so I can tell people that I go to the Jim first thing every morning.

    If you say the word 'gullible' very slowly it sounds just like oranges.

  3. #3
    Rae
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    Hey, I'm going to this show next weekend at First Avenue. No Emmylou Harris, though, just Neko and some guy named John Rauhouse whom I'm not familiar with. This'll be, what... the third time I've seen Neko? First time in a club setting, so that should be fun. Sounds like we're in for a good time.

    ~Rae

  4. #4
    Stone Stone's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rae
    Hey, I'm going to this show next weekend at First Avenue. No Emmylou Harris, though, just Neko and some guy named John Rauhouse whom I'm not familiar with. This'll be, what... the third time I've seen Neko? First time in a club setting, so that should be fun. Sounds like we're in for a good time.

    ~Rae
    First time for me, and during the penultimate song of her set, she broke a string on her ukelele. Instead of playing the song they were planning to play, we got treated to "Train From Kansas City." The Shangri-Las' version is an all-time favorite of mine, so I was pleased. No encore for Neko though (presumably out of respect for Emmylou).
    And the world will turn to flowing pink vapor stew.

  5. #5
    Man of the People Forums Moderator bobsticks's Avatar
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    That had to have been a great show with so much talent abounding from both ladies and their supporting casts. For any interested and not already initiated you might want to check out Emmylou on Live Roadrunning and Ms. Case on Live from AustinTx....

    Hey Stone, what part of GR do you live in? I grew up in Cascade.

  6. #6
    Rae
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stone
    First time for me, and during the penultimate song of her set, she broke a string on her ukelele. Instead of playing the song they were planning to play, we got treated to "Train From Kansas City." The Shangri-Las' version is an all-time favorite of mine, so I was pleased. No encore for Neko though (presumably out of respect for Emmylou).
    That's awesome. The first time I saw her was opening for Nick Cave in an old theater. Not a very intimate venue but I was floored. I don't remember much about the set list except that she opened with "Favorite" and it made me feel all funny. Also, some guy kept yelling "Rated X," but she never played it.

    ~Rae

  7. #7
    Stone Stone's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bobsticks
    That had to have been a great show with so much talent abounding from both ladies and their supporting casts. For any interested and not already initiated you might want to check out Emmylou on Live Roadrunning and Ms. Case on Live from AustinTx....

    Hey Stone, what part of GR do you live in? I grew up in Cascade.
    Yeah, definitely a great show.

    I live in Nunica now (out toward Spring Lake/Grand Haven if you're not familiar), but I work off Cascade road actually, right off I-96.
    And the world will turn to flowing pink vapor stew.

  8. #8
    Man of the People Forums Moderator bobsticks's Avatar
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    Yah, there's a lot of nice country up there. I've had many fondly remembered hazy moments in both Grand Haven and Souh Haven.

    The word around these parts is that both Neko Case and Yo La Tengo are to be playing locally this month, and if I'm not mistaken only a few blocks from my location. There's trouble abrewin'...

  9. #9
    Rae
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    All, right, so we went to this show last night and had a really good time.

    John Rauhouse opened and he was an unexpected delight... he had a quartet and they played primarily-- oh, I don't know how to describe it-- old timey guitar instrumentals. I recognized some of the tunes from recordings in my collection by similarly retro-fetishist groups like They Might Be Giants and Soul Coughing, but I'm sure that those sounds are recycled from earlier songs. He brought out Kelly Hogan to sing on a few numbers, and at one point she said "John, we can't do two Johnny Mercer songs in a row!"-- it was that kind of a set. Looking him up on allmusic, it looks like he's a member of the Grevious Angels, who I haven't heard (but feel like I've heard of-- but maybe I'm just thinking of Gram Parsons).

    Neko was in fine form as well... the set was heavy on material from Fox Confessor, but she did trot out a few standbys like "Lady Pilot," "Deep Red Bells," and "Favorite" as well as a few covers ("Train From Kansas City," Dylan's "Buckets of Rain," and "Knock Loud," which was the second encore). The highlights for me were a rollicking version of "John Saw That Number" and some great harmonies between Neko and Kelly Hogan on "If You Knew". If I had one complaint, it's the same one that I have about the last record-- too often, the vocals were drenched in reverb. I was actually looking forward to hearing some of the songs from Fox Confessor live in the hope that they'd be a little more stripped down and raw, but no such luck. I don't really mind it, but I'm not sure why it's employed so often when Neko has such a clear, strong, commanding voice on her own.

    Anyway, an enjoyable evening! I don't get out to as many big shows as I used to, so this was fun. Next up is Ted Leo at the end of the month...

    ~Rae

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