Robagram
07-19-2003, 07:38 AM
good review, but it fails to mention Mark Schatz's clogging and a Wilco song (Poor Places) as the first encore...
Nickle Creek flows fine across any genre
By ANNE MILLER, Staff writer
First published: Saturday, July 19, 2003
CLIFTON PARK -- Bluegrass, gospel, indie rock, jazz -- pick just about any genre, and odds are Nickel Creek has plucked away at it on the mandolin or fiddle.
In lesser hands, that could sound like a disaster. But the young trio of performers who comprise Nickel Creek have the intelligence and daring to cross genres and take risks, and the musical talent to pull it off.
If anyone at Northern Lights in Clifton Park on Thursday night doubted such a combination could work, surely by the end of the two-hour show they understood.
Nickel Creek is the brother/sister duo of Sara Watkins, 22, on violin, and Sean Watkins, 26, on acoustic guitar, along with mandolinist and lead singer Chris Thile, also 22. Hailing from San Diego, they've played behind some of the biggest names in modern country and bluegrass music, and their second album, This Side, won a modern folk Grammy last year.
To further prove their category-defying talents, this summer the band is enjoying two very unlikely minor hits, one an instrumental on CMT, the other a cover of a song by '90s indie rock darling Pavement, now on the Top-5 charts of alternative music stations.
Despite all the attention, the Watkins and Thile seem pretty levelheaded.
At Northern Lights, the banter flew, some of it funny, much of it self-deprecating, and all of it sounding like a bunch of young musicians having a blast doing what they loved. It showed.
The trio brought a bit of twang to Clifton Park with a song written from the standpoint of Jack Nicholson's character Melvin in the movie As Good As It Gets that offered Thile a chance to show off how high his voice can hit.
They also debuted a new song with a Celtic tinge that Thile announced had only been finished this week.
Many in the audience cheered at the first chords of The Lighthouse's Tale, a CMT hit off the first, eponymous album. But Nickel Creek isn't a band that plays along with expectations. Toward the end of the tune they segued into the first few verses of Wilco's I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, which they took musically on a rousing ride on the mandolin and fiddle, then returned to the Lighthouse for a coda.
Before the two-song encore the band asked if the boisterous crowd would be able to quiet down for a completely unplugged set, especially the drunks in the back.
Said drunks cheered -- then loudly shushed the crowd as the trio stepped away from the microphones and beckoned the fans closer for another bluegrass tune, and a sweet devotional that Sara belted.
Then the four performers -- the trio plus their bassist, Mark Schatz -- put their arms around each other's shoulders and took a well-deserved bow.
Nickle Creek flows fine across any genre
By ANNE MILLER, Staff writer
First published: Saturday, July 19, 2003
CLIFTON PARK -- Bluegrass, gospel, indie rock, jazz -- pick just about any genre, and odds are Nickel Creek has plucked away at it on the mandolin or fiddle.
In lesser hands, that could sound like a disaster. But the young trio of performers who comprise Nickel Creek have the intelligence and daring to cross genres and take risks, and the musical talent to pull it off.
If anyone at Northern Lights in Clifton Park on Thursday night doubted such a combination could work, surely by the end of the two-hour show they understood.
Nickel Creek is the brother/sister duo of Sara Watkins, 22, on violin, and Sean Watkins, 26, on acoustic guitar, along with mandolinist and lead singer Chris Thile, also 22. Hailing from San Diego, they've played behind some of the biggest names in modern country and bluegrass music, and their second album, This Side, won a modern folk Grammy last year.
To further prove their category-defying talents, this summer the band is enjoying two very unlikely minor hits, one an instrumental on CMT, the other a cover of a song by '90s indie rock darling Pavement, now on the Top-5 charts of alternative music stations.
Despite all the attention, the Watkins and Thile seem pretty levelheaded.
At Northern Lights, the banter flew, some of it funny, much of it self-deprecating, and all of it sounding like a bunch of young musicians having a blast doing what they loved. It showed.
The trio brought a bit of twang to Clifton Park with a song written from the standpoint of Jack Nicholson's character Melvin in the movie As Good As It Gets that offered Thile a chance to show off how high his voice can hit.
They also debuted a new song with a Celtic tinge that Thile announced had only been finished this week.
Many in the audience cheered at the first chords of The Lighthouse's Tale, a CMT hit off the first, eponymous album. But Nickel Creek isn't a band that plays along with expectations. Toward the end of the tune they segued into the first few verses of Wilco's I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, which they took musically on a rousing ride on the mandolin and fiddle, then returned to the Lighthouse for a coda.
Before the two-song encore the band asked if the boisterous crowd would be able to quiet down for a completely unplugged set, especially the drunks in the back.
Said drunks cheered -- then loudly shushed the crowd as the trio stepped away from the microphones and beckoned the fans closer for another bluegrass tune, and a sweet devotional that Sara belted.
Then the four performers -- the trio plus their bassist, Mark Schatz -- put their arms around each other's shoulders and took a well-deserved bow.