Musical happenings in and around the Capital City
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Toolbox
Published: September 25, 2009
Big thanks to all who came out in frigid temperatures to the inaugural Montpelier Downtown Music Festival last weekend. Your support helped make the event a huge success, and I look forward to doing it again with you next year. Cheers!
Now on to considerably warmer venues (being that they're all indoors, it couldn't be otherwise). Saturday night, down in Randolph, local singer-songwriter Myra Flynn will throw a CD release party in style at the Chandler Music Hall at 7:30 p.m. She'll be joined by local luminaries Anaïs Mitchell and Colin McCaffrey as guests. The show is to celebrate her most recent release, "Crooked Measures," which was positively reviewed in these pages by Art Edelstein. He predicted national success for her on par with Phish and Grace Potter (hopefully she has financial backers as strong as those acts had)! No doubt the lyrics-driven Ms. Flynn has earned her current local success though, as she's logged countless shows in venues from Burlington to Boston in the last few years. Get your neo-soul on and support a great local artist for $15 – tickets are available at www.chandler-arts.org. Congratulations, Myra!
Back in the Capital City, local metal-mavens Made in Iron return to Charlie O's tonight for an evening of full-on maniacal madness. For fans of the iconographic Iron Maiden, this tribute is as close as you'll come to the real thing, as Jay Ekis and company shred with an uncanny similarity to the British heavy-metal gods. Rock out starting at 10 p.m. Saturday night, local reggae jammers Bossman, led by longtime local vocalist Brandon Klarich, take the back of the barroom with their tight rhythm section in tow. The group purveys popular reggae tunes by the likes of Tosh and Marley, among others, and delivers them in non-traditional yet very danceable fashion. Get your groove on – and watch out for those pool cues! – once again at 10 p.m. Both shows are, as always at O's, for no cover.
Just down the street at The Black Door, a reunion of sorts takes place tonight when previously defunct Burlington-based klezmer/Gypsy act The Black Sea Quartet returns to their favorite local hotspot. The David Symons-led group was known for high-energy, Yiddish wedding-style tunes, and has been sorely missed as his more recent projects have been playing markedly more somber material. Hopefully this show returns to the high-energy style BSQ was known for. Saturday night, NYC-based jazz vocalist Mel Flannery appears with her band Trucking Company. The award-winning soprano is already highly acclaimed at a mere 24 years of age, having won a scholarship to the prestigious Manhattan School of Music. Catch a rising star in a small venue while you can. Both shows start at 9:30 pm for the usual honor cover.
A question I frequently hear around town is: "Where the heck is the Lamb Abbey?" The arts center and performance space is off the beaten track, it's true, but it's really not that hard to find. It is located in Pioneer Center, which is at the end of Barre Street where it empties out onto Route 2, just behind the VFW. There's a show there tonight as well, when local-ish duo The Kind Buds take the large Abbey stage. The duo has an acoustic repertoire of mostly Grateful Dead tunes, and play 'em darn well as a matter of fact. Take a not-so-long strange trip out to the Abbey tonight and catch 'em live for a nominal cover charge with BYOB – can't get any cheaper than that!
Over in the Granite City tonight, the Barre Opera House starts up their fall season celebration series with The Kahurangi Maori Dance Theatre. The group's performance, featuring 20 artists, offers stunning choreography, music and song and bright and colorful costumes, and is the only Maori theater troupe performing in the United States. Tickets are $10-$29 and can be had by visiting the BOH Web site at www.barreoperahouse.org.
Finally, Langdon Street Café turns 5 this weekend! They are celebrating with a weekend of cabaret, theater and music in typical LSC fashion. Hard to believe the place has been around for five years already. I coordinated the talent there for three of those years, and I can scarcely believe it myself. They've made some significant upgrades in the décor lately, and the place looks great. Stop in to check it out and wish them a happy birthday. For complete information on the weekend's entertainment, visit www.langdonstreetcafe.com.
Until next week, when there is another great weekend lineup in the city of the Golden Dome, get out there and support your local venue by checking out some live music – cheers!
Ed DuFresne is the former talent coordinator for the Langdon Street Café and occasionally produces concerts. He lives in Montpelier with an aspiring lawyer, a budding artist, an annoying bird named Lucy and a clutter of submitted CDs that are steadily being replaced by Web links.
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