Music City Nights LIVE! - 5/20/08
It’s a beautiful thing when you walk away from something as simple as a local concert and realize that you got to witness something magical. It’s truly astounding when you can’t sleep that night because the memories of the sounds are still vigorously pounding at the front of your brain. It’s better when the experience was so good, you don’t even care about turning it off.
Music City Nights LIVE! definitely provided something along these lines Tuesday night. There was some apparent force at work here - Music City Nights got it started, Limelight’s warm and comfortable venue housed it, and the performances that gave it life resembled something of an organized collision that, when put together, made their separate talents more intensely defined than initially suggested.
A lone Will Champlin opened the night armed with nothing more than a keyboard, but still managed to immediately demand the audience’s attention within seconds of his first performance – “Red Handed”, a song that, upon experiencing, no doubt creates a wave of questions along the lines of “Where has this song been all my life?” The mesmerized mood was maintained throughout the remainder of Will’s fresh and lyrically haunting (but catchy) set, which consisted of “Pocket Call”, “Time Bomb”, “Now That We’re Fallin’”, “Forget to Breathe”, and “Two Hearts at War”. That was it for Will, but at this point, it was reasonable to conclude that the night was going to provide all in attendance a healthy dose of multi-flavored talent.
Dee Miller, lead singer of the classic rock band Mystery, followed, also sans band but accompanied by John Swaggart, who went solo a couple of times during the set, and band mate Tony Loreto. Despite this new combination, the three managed to commence the Limelight’s roof blowing with “Tell Me Lies” and “Whiskey Song” – a fun, country-music anthem sort of song led by Swaggart. The trio cooled it down a bit with a slower, but equally capturing “I’m Sorry”, followed by “End Times”, with Swaggart on lead vocals again. They finished off with “Let You Go” – probably the best display of Dee’s voice of them all – and the sufficiently sexy “Heat”.
Tim LaRoche and his band SHED were up next. Before they even started playing, it was safe to assume that what Shed was to preparing to present was going to be completely different from the talents of the previous act – but what else do you expect from Music City Nights? They started off with “My Redneck of the Woods”, one of those country songs that you can’t help but enjoy even if you don’t care for country. After this, Tim took on the aura of a star via a two-fisted salute and loud holler of “THANK YOU NASHVILLE!” SHED continued to bob audience heads and stroke focused ears through “Raise a Little Hell to Heaven”, and then went into a totally opposite direction with “You Can Come Cryin’ to Me” – which not only showed SHED’s heart, but also showcased the vocal beauty of Johanna Jacobsen, Tim’s fellow singer in the band. As they once again skyrocketed to their toe-tapping style with “Country Lives Here”, a sort of tribute to the mystical force of Country and the summation of the set, you couldn’t help but feel like you had just taken a ride on a musical rollercoaster.
Any Journey fan would have been pleased with Chain Reaction’s (a Journey tribute band) performance. Lead singer Ryan Christopher lit up Limelight with his energy and powerful vocals, and the band as a whole sent chills up the audience’s collective spine with its mystically bonded chemistry. Cheers and applause were abundant during their performance of well-known Journey classics such as “Don’t Stop Believing”, “Faithfully”, “Separate Ways”, and “Wheel in the Sky”. The band was so natural that, by the end of their set, you had forgotten that they were even a tribute band. No doubt, the members of Journey and any of their loyal followers would have been blushing with pride.
If any in attendance felt they hadn’t received a satisfactory musical fix, headliner Chris Nathan and his band were ready to push them into euphoria. It’s difficult to explain the band’s style, considering they’re an unpredictable mixture of rock/pop/soul/everything, so I’m going to stick with saying that they covered every end of the style spectrum – only the spectrum was the size of the Empire State Building and the band managed to inflate it to combustion. Everything about the band fit - throughout, Chris was able to pull out a hard, gruff voice and a soft, relaxing one of equal passion and majesty, sometimes varying this intensely within the same breath. Each song had a unique identity. Top that with bass lines from above and powerful (but not overpowering) guitar and drum talent, distinctly amazing lyrics, and a stage presence strong enough to make a corpse pay attention, and you have a slight idea of what Chris Nathan presented. He opened with “Girl By the Window”, an excellent choice considering the downright brilliance of the song, followed by “Sunshine and Alcohol”, “I Wouldn’t Change a Thing”, and “Happy” – which is receiving radio play on hundreds of stations throughout the country.
“You guys need to swear really loud for this song”, Chris told the audience prior to whipping out a diabolical performance of his song “Bonnie and Clyde”. Although it was late, any swaying attention was definitely recaptured when the group – not failing to mix it up - presented a unique cover of “No Diggity” by Blackstreet. As a perfect cherry to this musical sundae, a last minute decision was made to bring “beat box master” James Platt from the audience to assist Chris in his final song, the unexpected collaboration proving not only as a perfect end to an amazing show, but as a winning point in diversity’s favor.
Overall, Music City Nights LIVE! provided an overwhelming injection of excitement into this writer’s musical vein. It was fresh, it was diverse, it was fun - it was just good, and, based on the cheers of my fellow listeners, I’m not the only one that feels that way.
If you missed the intense level of hot in Tuesday night’s show, don’t kick yourself too hard – on Friday, May 23rd, Music City Nights LIVE! is once again presenting Chain Reaction and Chris Nathan at Limelight, along with the equally potent Gold Rush and Adam Fears Band, starting at 7 pm. Bring your adrenaline, your applause, and a fresh pocket in your brain to place new memories – trust me, you’ll need all of it.
Limelight. Friday. 7 pm. Be there.
Links of Importance:
Music City Nights LIVE! Official Myspace
Will Champlin’s Myspace
Dee Miller/Mystery’s Myspace
Tim LaRoche’s Myspace
Chain Reaction’s Myspace
Chris Nathan’s Myspace
(c) Danielle Shaw
