From: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org (jangle-poets-digest) To: jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Subject: jangle-poets-digest V11 #7 Reply-To: jangle-poets@smoe.org Sender: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jangle-poets-digest Friday, February 19 2010 Volume 11 : Number 007 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [JP] Maura Kennedy Band Show 2/16/10 Living Room NYC [kpalmatier@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:14:50 -0500 From: kpalmatier@aol.com Subject: [JP] Maura Kennedy Band Show 2/16/10 Living Room NYC "The longest night, the longest day..." (Til Tuesday "Sleeping & Waking") Where to begin. This truly was the longest night, the longest day for me. Expecting the third snowstorm in three weeks to come through, I got up at 3:30 AM Tuesday to beat the rush hour mess in Boston. Didn't plough under the covers till 3:30 AM Wednesday, a 24 hour day, after 2 difficult drives. First the drive to NYC, through 3 separate snow-squalls, leaving Boston, leaving New Haven, and coming into NYC -- and later the drive back to Boston, slowly on slick roads, with a misadventure on I-91 thrown in for good measure, when I had to back down a ramp at a rest area, back onto the highway, since trucks had completely blocked off the off-ramp. There were a couple of jackknifed trucks tossed into the kit and kaboodle too, on I-91, near Cromwell, where I used to live -- "If You Lived Here You'd Be Home Now." Maura Kennedy's Full Band show at the Living Room was ever so much more fun! I have to distill the essence from 3 full pages of notes, written all over the place... "And the flowers bloom like madness in the spring..." (Jethro Tull "Aqualung") Maura Kennedy rocks. She is a rock star. This was the best Maura Kennedy solo show yet. Her Syracuse Maura Kennedy and Friends Hometown Show 4/23/09 with Artie Lenin and Gary Frenay was the bomb. Her first Full Band show at the Living Room 1/19/10 with Cadence Carroll vocals, Pete Kennedy bass, Andy Burton keyboards, and Tommy Allen drums, was an even bigger megaton explosion of sound, a major earthquake, 6.0 on the Richter Scale of Hard Rocks. Last night's 2/16/10 Living Room Reprise with the same band rocked so hard, it was completely off the scale -- earth-shaking, measuring instrument needles dangling in the wind, jaw-dropping, mind-blowing good fun. Maura unveiled what even she called her "badass guitar solo" on "Chains," on electric guitar. She said she'd practiced it 10 hours to get it right. It was only about 15 seconds long. But her "badass guitar solo" was the most blown-away I'd been by "Chains" since it first blew my mind when I first heard it, 6/6/08 at Club Helsinki. "Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time...?" (Delfonics) I specifically remember writing after the Club Helsinki show that Maura Kennedy on the dark "Chains" reminded me of a young Sarah McLachlan -- for instance, with Sarah playing lead electric guitar on the dark "Possession." I was forcefully reminded of this once again, when Maura let loose last night with the unveiling of her first-ever electric guitar solo on "Chains" ! And speaking of unveiled... The 10/30/08 pre-Halloween Heart of Gotham show at the Bitter End set the gold standard when Pete Kennedy unveiled an entire set of previously unplayed cover songs and Maura Kennedy did her whole solo set dressed up for Halloween, unveiling her superhero alter-ego, as Catwoman. Last night, Maura led the Charge of the Dark Brigade, with her whole band all dressed up in black, dressed as an ensemble, and in Maura's case, dressed to kill. Maura in a hauntingly spooky semi-see-through black mini-dress, with three necklaces and her usual high black boots, smart, simple, and one of the other "s" words too, all in all, devastatingly effective. Pete in black leather coat, black pants, black scarf for show, and sneakers. Andy, spinning one bit of keyboard wizardry after another with his Mad Scientist look, wearing his usual glasses, black patterned sweater, and black pants. Tommy, boyishly grinning from the drum kit like Ringo Starr, in black shirt and black pants. Even Cadence, that bastion of Sunshine Radiance, decked out black top and black pants. What a tremendous impression this created -- Maura Kennedy and her Merry Men in Black. "Deck the halls in Melancholy, Falalala, Lalalala." And the band turned it up a notch too, relative to the previous show last month when they played the same material. Maura said they'd actually had a chance to rehearse this time, and it showed. Cadence said she felt much more confident this time, and it showed. I thought Pete was a much more powerful presence this time, and he was already completely large and in charge the first time, at the 1/19/10 Living Room show, on bass. Tommy was already a take-charge phenomenon at the last show, but I thought he cemented this reputation on drums last night. And Mad Scientist lookalike Andy added keyboard solo after keyboard solo on any number of songs, over and above what he'd done with basically no rehearsal last time when he was almost a last-minute replacement for someone else -- including "Thing with Feathers," "New Way to Live," "Sun Burns Gold," and "Patience," all different from last time. To get one of the best seats in the house, I made sure I arrived in time to see both of the sets before Maura's, by Lay Low and by Kelley Ryan. They were both great, each in their own way. Kelley mentioned at one point how hot it was in room. I had to take my shirt off, it was so hot. Then the night got even that much hotter, when Maura and her band lit up the stage and set the room on fire. That was a lot to relate, and I wrote a lot about it! Bruce Check out the Kennedys' Official Home Page: http://www.KennedysMusic.com/ Fab photos, the Official tour diary, dashboard Buddha haiku, groovy merchandise...what more could you ask for? ------------------------------ End of jangle-poets-digest V11 #7 *********************************