Despite the winter freeze, this town is a hotbed of live
music. I caught So Last Year on Thursday night at the Bug
Jar not knowing what to expect other than that several of the band’s tunes piqued
my interest. Buffalo-based folk-pop outfit Darling Harbor was
performing when I got there and the quartet sounded completely slick. Lead
singer Ben Uytiepo’s voice had a clear theatrical
quality that blended nicely with the band’s upbeat direction.
So Last Year followed, and front man Logan Van Epps set up
shop on the floor while the rest of the group spread out on the stage. If there
is anything Van Epps knows how to do, it’s how to work a room; his banter put
the quintet on good footing with the well-attended crowd. So Last Year’s
set was short but sweet and the band created a wall of thunder. The highlight
of the evening though was a quieter acoustic tune, “Hold Onto
Me,” that got nearly everyone in the house singing along with the chorus.
I couldn’t miss Lee Brice’s “Life Off My Years” tour at Blue Cross arena on Friday.
Opening act Maddie and Tae kicked things off. The duo was backed by four
of Nashville’s finest who provided a solid foundation for the young starlets as
they mixed equal amounts of country pride and girl power. At one point, one of
the gals uttered a line, “Hey Rochester, since we are near a lake, do you like
to fish?” That launched into “Shut Up And Fish,” one
of the evening’s barnburners. Maddie and Tae’s band concluded the set by
flexing some muscle of its own with a few seconds of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.”
When Lee Brice hit the stage, he stayed in back with his
group for a bit before heading out toward the front, and the house gave him a
warm reception once he did. Part of Brice’s appeal is that he is a good ol’ boy with a penchant for writing thoughtful ballads.
Brice is a likeable guy — he gave away his acoustic guitar to a star struck fan
at the show. And when a woman jumped up onstage, he hugged her
before she was escorted away by security.
Brice’s most impressive guitar solo came before the night’s
best gag when he finished his riff and opened the door of a Marshall amp to
reveal a cooler full of beer. That led into cracking open a cold one, and of
course, “Beer” a tune from his album “Hard 2 Love.” Other favorites, including
“Drinking Class,” had folks roaring with approval. Toward the end when a piano
was moved onto the center stage, Brice was left alone with the audience to
perform his CMA song of the year “I Don’t Dance.” A montage of home movie
footage of his wedding was projected on the big screen video monitor and it was
time to call it an evening.
There must be a rule among musicians that says don’t play on
Super Bowl Sunday, so I checked out Saturday night’s show at Cafรฉ
Veritas featuring Christine Lavin and Don White. At 64, New
York City-based musician Christine Lavin is no stranger to football — she was Rex
Ryan’s babysitter during a Joe Namath-era Jets training camp. At Cafรฉ Veritas,
she threw touchdowns during a captivating performance. Lavin breathed a beat
into a loop station and began by doing an improvisational rap, which was probably
the last thing you could imagine from someone who taught a Pete Seeger verse to
Bob Dylan. Lavin did some napkin folding and baton twirling too but never
strayed far from her folk roots with a style reminiscent, at times, of Laurie
Anderson’s spoken word monologues. Her partner, Don White was a funny
storyteller at heart who sang occasional bittersweet tunes. When the pair
shared the stage, they had the packed house on its feet for a Bruno
Mars-inspired number before inviting the men of the audience to join them for
closing tune, “Sensitive New Age Guys.”
This article appears in Feb 3-9, 2016.
